Comments on: Bull Moose Conservatism and John McCain

By: redfish

redfish — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:13:34 +0000

cs3,

My view is that the Republican Party isn’t dominated by social conservative extremists any more than the Democratic Party is dominated by social liberal extremists.

On abortion–for example–people on the left are still fighting things most people support, like parental notification laws that have court exemptions. Through the 90s they were opposing partial birth abortion bans, and many still do. People on the right continue to want to expand their agenda also, some want to ban all abortion–others just want to return it to the states by reversing Roe v Wade, because they support states rights and are against judicial activism.

Most people in the Republican and Democratic parties are moderates–but, interestingly– Barack Obama holds the far left view on abortion, while Sarah Palin holds the far right view on abortion.

The extent that the GOP was controlled by Christian evangelical extremists I think was an exaggeration by people on the left; like people on the right think all Democrats are Marxist libertines.

Do you think I’m wrong?

By: c3

c3 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:23:08 +0000

“My problem with the current version of GOP-ism is encapsulated in the Right Wing Christian movement.”

The irony in this is that over the past several years we’ve seen a shift in evangelical voters.

Surveyors of faith and politics such as Barna and Pew have seen a shift leftward among evangelicals, especially younger ones.

I would suggest that what you’re seeing is a party that has not updated its “reference points” Just as it took the Democratic Party so many years to stop looking back to Roosevelt and the New Deal (note Mondale in ‘84), I believe we’re seeing the Republican Party struggle to move away from 1980 reference points which include the traditional Religious Right themes and talking points.

As George Bush discovered with David Kuo you have to walk the talk.

By: The Mahablog » The Usual Slop From David Books

The Mahablog » The Usual Slop From David Books — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:45:34 +0000

[...] Some rightie actually refers to “Bull Moose conservatism.” Please. TR’s Bull Moose party was [...]

By: redfish

redfish — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:35:24 +0000

Rob,

As a moderate, I think its obvious that the conservatives are starting to lose elections as they try to narrow their base, and pretend as if the Republican party was once this pure ideology party that was corrupted. In fact, the Republican party used to be the big tent party.

However, I think your view that there are scary theocratic conservatives is based on a distortion of what these people actually believe, and Bush has not in actuality been able to push through that much de-regulation. A lot of his policies were blocked by Democrats.

I see in the Democratic party something equally scary though, as they demean anyone who is not liberal as extreme, and only praise Republicans who support liberal policies.

By: Rob in Michigan

Rob in Michigan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:17:16 +0000

As an Independent, I can tell you why the ‘conservative middle’ has embraced Obama… at least why I am. First – I’ll admit I’m liberal in social mores, centrist in economic issues and right when it comes to crime and punishment and military spending/defense readyness.
My problem with the current version of GOP-ism is encapsulated in the Right Wing Christian movement. The ‘fundies’ scare the hell out of me as by the rhetoric, they’ll not be satisfied until we have a Theocratic government based on ‘biblical principles’. I think the vast, vast majority of the middle has found it disturbing at how wholly the GOP has embraced and encouraged these folks. The very nation was founded on not giving away power to the religious zealots and remaining a nation founded on our religious beliefs, yes, but staying Secular in law and governance. The Far Right has far too much influence on the GOP. Combine this with surrendering all of the accepted tenets of conservatism (small government, mostly, and all the lack of respect for the constitution by this administration) and the utter failure of the “de-regulation” obsession this administration tied its wagon to and you have why people are sick of the GOP. It doesn’t help that John McCain has continued to call for further de-regulation as the answer despite all evidence that you cannot trust industry to regulate itself, and you can see why those who are not ‘dyed in the wool’ Republicans would see ANYTHING as a better try then voting in yet more GOP members. The party shot itself in the foot in multiple ways that drove the moderate voices away from itself… independents sure weren’t going to fill in the gap. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzalez pulled down the GOP and John McCain has done nothing to specifically tell us how he would change the outlook of the party in light of its obvious failures, if in fact, he feels any change needed.

By: redfish

redfish — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:50:54 +0000

You keep on calling Teddy Roosevelt a Bull Moose conservative, and say that progressive conservative is a contradiction. But the name of his party was the Progressive Party, and Roosevelt spoke about progressivism all the time. The original progressives were conservatives. The whole rationale behind the party was, achieving liberal goals through conservative means.

A cartoon on the matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chemist.JPG

But the second thing, is the ‘Bull Moose’ tradition David Brooks is talking about was always protectionist. Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, all were against free trade policies and oriented towards mercantilist-style internal improvement programs.

The only thing Bull Moose about McCain is, sometimes, his rhetoric.