George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support

Do you believe editorials by conservative sources such as American Conservative will change some conservatives' minds or is there too much entrenchment at this point?

We've discussed Buchanan before in this forum and quite frankly he broke with what I consider the American conservative mainstream a long time ago.

Any intellectually honest conservative that believed in no budget deficits, a decrease in the federal governments expansion, and tight boarder controls would have long since ditched this candidate. They wouldn't need a magazine to tell them to do so.

Just out of curiosity, Aquilla, would you say that Bush and his policies are designed around the principles of conservatism?

You may say that conservatism has changed, but concepts don't change: they're static. Maybe the mainstream Republican party has moved away to something other than conservatism. No true conservative would shamelessly expand the federal government as this one has, or open our southern border as this one has, or express favor to prevent states from choosing the legal perception of marriage as this one has, or spend so far into deficit as this one has. Love him or hate him, Pat Buchanan has been a conservative icon for a long time now. Who really left whom?

[GOTCHA!!!     It's not Reagan, but rather of all people, Jerry Brown.  Yep, ole "moonbeam".       Back when he was running for President he made a comment that made a whole lot of sense to me.   He compared being the President to that of being the captain of a large ship.  Just as the captain of that ship couldn't make it "turn on a dime", so could the President not change the course of government more than a few degrees at a time.   He could turn it to the right or left by a few degrees, but he could not turn it around overnight.  This is an insight that people like Buchanan have failed to grasp and because of that failure, the world has passed them by.   I don't believe his ideas are relevant anymore because they are simply not realistic in the current climate.

When the country has been in republican control for somewhere around 10 years and the government is 30% bigger, the deficit is staggering because they don't beleive in spending cuts, our civil liberties are being stripped away one shoe at a time, and we grant people illegally entering our country amnesty, the republican party is bankrupt. Accepting this behavior by re-electing them fixes nothing and gives us the same medicroty we've come to accept.

Not me. They're fired. All of 'em.

I'll ignore the denial (lackluster? C'mon..."horrid"is more appropriate) to make a bigger point: To seperate the economy from Capital Hill is ludicrous. Who makes and enacts fiscal policy? The Easter Bunny?

Bush inherited a mess from Bill Clinton AND A REPUBLICAN HOUSE. Bill Clinton didn't destroy the economy on his own. He had to convince a republican majority to do it. And he succeeded.

As soon as the feds made the first ruling against Microsoft, the bubble started busting. Bush came into office with a recession hanging over his head he could not prevent.

But what did he do? Nothing?

Not hardly. He put his economic plan into effect, he made some improvements, and the economy is now on his watch. However, it's HIS economic plan that is running up the deficit. It's HIS economic plan not to control spending.

Your statement is ridiculous. You need to face reality. Conservatism is dead with these idiots in office.

As far as the Supreme Court, that's one issue out of many. And this isn't a one issue problem. It's a fundamental problem with this entire disjointed party.

The American Conservative figured this out. I figured this out. Why can't anybody else? Is your common sense blinded by loyalty?

GOTCHA!!!  It's not Reagan, but rather of all people, Jerry Brown. Yep, ole "moonbeam".  Back when he was running for President he made a comment that made a whole lot of sense to me. He compared being the President to that of being the captain of a large ship. Just as the captain of that ship couldn't make it "turn on a dime", so could the President not change the course of government more than a few degrees at a time. He could turn it to the right or left by a few degrees, but he could not turn it around overnight. This is an insight that people like Buchanan have failed to grasp and because of that failure, the world has passed them by. I don't believe his ideas are relevant anymore because they are simply not realistic in the current climate.

I'm a conservative -- a true conservative who wants fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and an emphasis on states governing themselves. I'm not a Republican, and the main reason for my rejection of the GOP is intolerant, self-righteous people like Johnson.

<snip>

What really gets me is that right-wing Christians have hijacked the GOP and turned it into a hate-spewing party that really wants to control my morality. I want no part of that, and I don't want it running my country.

And the truly ironic thing is: If these so-called Christians actually followed the teachings of Jesus, they'd subscribe to a far more left-wing platform.

Do you believe editorials by conservative sources such as American Conservative will change some conservatives' minds or is there too much entrenchment at this point?

Bush is anything but conservative when it comes to money, which he says is ours. Iraq is getting a big chunk of it; our military is getting less despite what the President says.

To get the majority of the American public to read anything, I'm afraid you'd have to put it on the racks at grocery store checkouts.

I agree that Bush is not a conservative, at least not a fiscal conservative. However, why is it you say the military is getting less money? In his first year in office he got a pay increase through for our men and women in uniform. Something that wasn't done in years.

For clarification: I was just saying that of the $87 billion dollar package it was a relatively small amount that actually went to the troops, that's all.

Some conservatives will be influenced by this endorsement. As far as the vast majority of Bush supporters, though, they do not subscribe to this magazine.

Smith unexpectedly weighed into the Presidential race Friday by endorsing John Kerry for President. "Because of the courage and character you demonstrated in Vietnam, I believe you when you say that you'll do a better job than President Bush to win the peace in Iraq, as well as to win the war against terrorism ... President Bush has failed to restrain federal spending, sending our deficit spinning into the stratosphere. I well remember that you were one of a handful of Democrats who crossed the aisle to forge a bipartisan coalition in the Senate to balance the federal budget ... John, for each of these reasons I believe President Bush has failed our country and my party. Accordingly, I want you to know that when I go into the booth next Tuesday I am going to cast my vote for you," explained Smith.

But Conservatives should certainly take issue with Iraq policy, because as PE mentions, we are paying for the war and the reconstruction.  Why we would do this, effectively like a grant instead of a loan to an oil rich country is beyond me.   

Expanding the Federal Bureaucracy (General spending up across the board)
Expanding Corporate Regulation
Increasing Spending beyond what revenues are coming in
Going against free trade with Tariffs on some goods (Steel Industry)
Expanding Social Services and Adding new Benefits (Prescription Drugs)
Attacking States Rights (Medicinal Marijuana in CA, Trying to Ban Gay Marriage, And Federalizing Education even further)
Promoting Illegal Immigration (the Presidents quasi-amnesty proposal)

None of these things say Conservative, and most are things Conservatives have actively campaigned against for decades.   Now the President can't do these things alone, it take Congress to do anything and several of the above are actually congressional issues the President did not address or veto.  Interestingly, the congress is currently controlled by the Republicans who are supposed to be the party of conservatism. 

I think, if President Reagan was alive and Lucid today he would be out and about behind closed doors wacking these so called conservatives over the head with a big stick.     I wish someone would really take up his cause again.  

What happened in the Reagan years is that revenues went up substantially after the tax cuts (took about 2 years for the revenues to increase if memory serves) but congress consistently increased spending beyond the increased revenues.  Reagan did attempt to fight it by vetoing the budget and causing a government shutdown.   The result was all sorts of news coverage showing government employees and families scared about how they would pay their bills, buy food etc and fault for their situation was attributed to President Reagan's veto.

When the same situation happened under President Clinton and the Government shut down the same kind of stories about government employess and the concerns and fears ran again.  This time the fault was laid on the Republicans in Congress and the budget they wrote.

Now it is the congress that has the power to spend money and craft budgets and the President's power is to sign or veto them.  So at least in the President Clinton era the media got it right.

The reason Reagan could not fight the out of control spending of congress is because it was political suicide to do so with the media telling the public it was solely his fault.

Now in the last 4 years, we have a Republican President and a Republican Controlled Congress.  So the fault clearly falls on the Republicans regardless of your opinion of who should be held accountable be it the President or the Congress when it comes to out of control spending.

Will the Democrats do better?  Not likely, this is not about what is right it is about what will get the congress members more votes / donations in the next election.  That is why neither party really cares to control spending.  TO control spending would be to reduce pork and it is that pork that keeps their campaigns funded and there constituents voting for them.

A Democratic President and a Republican Congress once balanced the budget.  However, this was not due to making any real political changes or hard decisions (where were the spending cuts?).  It was because the tech market bubble had increased federal revenues to the point that the budget would have balanced itself if left alone and both sides wanted credit for "getting government spending under control"  and balancing the budget.

If you want people in office who care more about America then they do about themselves or their party then you need to turn your back on both the Democrats and the Republicans, because these two machines care about nothing but power and re-election.

Well, I suppose I don't buy that explanation but I fear we will go too far afield to debate this point in particular on this thread.

This took a lot of guts for Clinton to do this.  The public reaction could have broken either way.  I respect that.

I'm not sure this is true. Reagan was one of the most popular presidents ever. I can't imagine how this would be political suicide.

The oft-repeated refrain I hear is that we're at war; everything changed after 9/11.  Somehow, this justifies tax cuts coupled with increased spending.  Bleh....

Fair enough. We had a smokin', irrationally exhuberant economy in the 1990s. However, the President and/or Congress could have easily spent that money.

I'm all for third party candidates; I typically vote Libertarian but have voted Green when the Libertarian candidate's positions are too extreme.  This election though has convinced me to reluctantly vote Kerry (not that it matters in California).  I'll likely not vote Democrat for any other office.

"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."

A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."

He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.

He ran for election as a social moderate. But every single question in domestic social policy has been resolved to favor the hard-core religious right. His proposal to amend the constitution to deny an entire minority equal rights under the law is one of the most extreme, unnecessary and divisive measures ever proposed in this country. And his response to all criticism - to duck the hardest questions, to reflexively redirect attention to the flaws of his opponents, and to stay within the confines of his own self-reinforcing coterie - has made him singularly unable to adjust, to learn from mistakes, to adapt to a fast-changing world. In peace-time, that's regrettable. In war-time, it's dangerous.

I know few people enthused about John F. Kerry. His record is undistinguished, and where it stands out, mainly regrettable. He intuitively believes that if a problem exists, it is the government's job to fix it. He has far too much faith in international institutions, like the corrupt and feckless U.N., in the tasks of global management. He got the Cold War wrong. He got the first Gulf War wrong. His campaign's constant and excruciating re-positioning on the war against Saddam have been disconcerting, to say the least. I completely understand those who look at this man's record and deduce that he is simply unfit to fight a war for our survival. They have an important point - about what we know historically of his character and his judgment when this country has faced dire enemies. His scars from the Vietnam war lasted too long and have gone too deep to believe that he has clearly overcome the syndrome that fears American power rather than understands how to wield it for good.

So we have two risks. We have the risk of continuing with a presidency of palpable incompetence and rigidity. And we have the risk of embarking on a new administration with a man whose record as a legislator inspires little confidence in his capacity to rise to the challenges ahead. Which is the greater one?

While the majority of conservatives are Republican, I would wager that there are roughly 200,000 who are members of a smattering of political parties.  You have the America First Party with Buchananite leanings, to the stridently christian American Party that saw its heyday in the 1970s.  There is also the renegade Constitution faction known as the American Heritage Party.  Not to mention the American Independent Party, the Constitution Party, the Constitution Action Party, the Family Values Party, and the American Independent Party.   If these conservatives could put aside their bickering, I'm sure the president would have more conservative voters in his pocket.  At the same time, a lot of the above mentioned groups are rather small.

I know few people enthused about John F. Kerry. His record is undistinguished, and where it stands out, mainly regrettable. He intuitively believes that if a problem exists, it is the government's job to fix it. He has far too much faith in international institutions, like the corrupt and feckless U.N., in the tasks of global management. He got the Cold War wrong. He got the first Gulf War wrong. His campaign's constant and excruciating re-positioning on the war against Saddam have been disconcerting, to say the least. I completely understand those who look at this man's record and deduce that he is simply unfit to fight a war for our survival. They have an important point - about what we know historically of his character and his judgment when this country has faced dire enemies. His scars from the Vietnam war lasted too long and have gone too deep to believe that he has clearly overcome the syndrome that fears American power rather than understands how to wield it for good.

Sullivan's dissection of Kerry is the best I've ever seen. I can't believe he sees through that pompous self-important self-righteous stuffed shirt so completely and still plans to vote for him. I simply can't believe anybody could write this ...


... and still endorse the guy. If that were my opinion of Kerry -- and it totally is -- there's no way I could ever vote for him under any but the most dire circumstances. All this despite that Bush is neither Pat Buchanan's idea of a conservative, nor mine. But one thing Bush is IMHO: capable of being trusted as Commander-in-Chief, which Kerry is not.

The answer to that lies in an assessment of the future. We cannot know it; we can merely guess. My best judgment of what we will face is the following: a long and difficult insurgency on Iraq; an Iran on the brink of a nuclear capacity; a North Korea able to distract the U.S. at a moment's notice from the crisis in the Middle East; and an immensely complicated and difficult task of nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. At home, we face a fiscal crisis of growing proportions - one that, if left alone, will destroy our future capacity to wage the war for our own survival.

Which candidate is best suited for this unappetizing ordeal? In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration has shown itself impatient with and untalented at nation-building. Moreover, the toll of the war has left the United States with minimal international support, one important ingredient for the successful rebuilding of nations. If Bush is re-elected, even Britain will likely shift toward withdrawal in Iraq, compounding American isolation there and making it even harder for a new Iraqi government to gain legitimacy. In the essential tasks of building support for greater international help in Iraq - financially, militarily, diplomatically - Kerry is the better choice. No, other countries cannot bail us out or even contribute much in the way of an effective military. But within Iraq, the impact of a more international stamp on the occupation and on the elections could help us win the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis. That battle - as much as the one on the battlefield itself - is crucial for success. I fear Bush is too polarizing, too controversial, too loathed a figure even within his own country, to pull this off.

The president says that he alone can act militarily when the danger is there; and Kerry is too weak for our current crisis. I disagree. The chance of a third forced regime change somewhere in the world in the next four years is extremely low. We don't even have the troops. Bush's comparative advantage - the ability to pull the trigger when others might balk - will be largely irrelevant. That doesn't mean it hasn't come in handy. Without Bush, Saddam would still be in power. But just because the president was suited to fight the war for the last four years doesn't mean he is suited to succeed at the more complicated and nuanced tasks of the next four. In fact, some of the very virtues that made him suited to our past needs now make him all the more unsuited to our future ones. I am still glad he was president when we were attacked. But that doesn't mean he's the right leader for the years ahead. And one of the great benefits of being a democracy at war is that we can change leaders and tactics to advance the same goals. Dictatorships are stuck with the same guy - with all his weaknesses and all the hubris that comes from running successful wars, hubris that almost always leads to fatal errors, hubris that isn't restricted to tyrants.

I still rate Bush acceptable if not wonderful, and Kerry as simply not qualified for all the reasons Sullivan gave.

" Before the current campaign, it might have been argued that at least in affirming the importance of faith and respecting those who profess it the administration had embraced traditional conservative views. But in the wake of the Swift Boat ads attacking John Kerry, even this argument can no longer be maintained. As an elder of the Presbyterian Church, I found that those ads were not at all in the Christian tradition. John McCain rightly condemned them as dishonest and dishonorable. The president should have, too. That he did not undermines his credibility on questions of faith.


Some say it's just politics. But that's the whole point. More is expected of people of faith than "just politics."


The fact is that the Bush administration might better be called radical or romantic or adventurist than conservative. And that's why real conservatives are leaning toward Kerry."


-- Clyde Prestowitz, counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration and an elder of the Presbyterian Church, from "The Conservative Case for Kerry," published in the Providence Journal and other newspapers, October 15, 2004.

" I have always been, and I still am, a registered Republican, but I shall enthusiastically vote for John Kerry for president on November 2... If the Bush administration stays in power four more years, it will pack the Supreme Court with neocons who reject the idea that the Constitution is a living document designed to protect the freedom of the citizens."
-- Anne Morton Kimberly, widow of former Republican National Committee chair Rogers C.B. Morton, Secretary of the Interior during the Nixon administration and Secretary of Commerce during the Ford administration, endorsing Kerry in a an opinion piece that appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal, October 14, 2004.

"The war is just a misbegotten thing that's spiraling down. It's a matter of conscience for me. After 9/11, the whole world was behind us. That's all gone now. That's been squandered. Now we've made the entire Muslim world hate us. And for what? For what?"
-- Former State Senator Al Meiklejohn, Republican from Colorado and World War II combat veteran, explaining his decision to support John Kerry in an interview with The Denver Post, September 19, 2004.

"I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep the secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court."
-- Former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, Republican from Kentucky, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece that appeared in The Louisville Courier-Journal, October 20, 2004.