The Goat Pen

Dr. Strangelove wrote:Something bigger to read into this??

Canada Closes Tehran Embassy; Expels all Iranian Dilpomats

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-clo ... s-1.946127

Johnette's Daddy wrote: ..as long as the GOP keeps nominating mushy moderates like Dole, Bush Sr., McCain, and Romney, they are going to continue down the path of the Whigs.

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

Dr. Strangelove wrote:Something bigger to read into this??

Canada Closes Tehran Embassy; Expels all Iranian Dilpomats

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-clo ... s-1.946127

Canada is going to war?

Toemeesleather wrote:Afraid you can't understand basic math/politics? wow.

Professor Tiger wrote:

Johnette's Daddy wrote: ..as long as the GOP keeps nominating mushy moderates like Dole, Bush Sr., McCain, and Romney, they are going to continue down the path of the Whigs.

TFIFY.

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

Professor Tiger wrote:

Johnette's Daddy wrote: ..as long as the GOP keeps nominating mushy moderates like Dole, Bush Sr., McCain, and Romney, they are going to continue down the path of the Whigs.

TFIFY.

Let's compare the list of Republican Presidents against the modern GOP standards:

Lincoln? Please. Established the IRS, the progressive tax, freed the slaves, trampled on states' rights, selected a Democrat(!) as his Vice-President.
Grant? Outlawed the Ku Klux Klan.
Hayes? Appeased blacks, set up the modern Civil Service system (no, that's not redundant).
Garfield? Appointed African Americans.
Arthur? Didn't cut taxes after years of record surpluses.
Harrison? Passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Ought to make him an honorary Democrat.
McKinley? Too protectionist.
Teddy Roosevelt? Progressive AND Environmentalist = commie pinko liberal.
Taft? Even more liberal than Roosevelt.
Harding? Soft on civil rights, soft on women's rights
Coolidge? Promoted class warfare.
Hoover? Supported the welfare state.
Eisenhower? Soft on civil rights.
Nixon? Soft on abortion, soft on guns, soft on Palestine, anti-Gold standard
Reagan? Tax & spender, soft on gun control.

Using the standard of today's GOP, the last true conservative was Jefferson Davis.

Professor Tiger wrote:You obviously have a passion for ancient history. Are you a Bama fan? Let's keep the discussion within living memory, shall we?

Reagan was a genuine conservative. He beat Carter and destroyed Mondale.

Bush Sr. was a moderate who beat Dukakis on Reagan's coattails, but lost to Clinton.

Dole was a moderate who lost to Clinton.

Bush Jr. ran as a conservative (how he actually governed is another matter) and beat Gore. Kerry too.

. . .

Here endeth the lesson.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said today that both Ronald Reagan and his father George H. W. Bush would have had a difficult time getting nominated by today’s ultra-conservative Republican Party.

“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground,” Bush said, adding that he views the hyper-partisan moment as “temporary.”

“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time – they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support,” he said. Reagan “would be criticized for doing the things that he did.”

The funny thing is, Reagan was a flaming liberal compared to today’s American Taliban members and their views. In the conservative canon, Reagan was a heroic tax cutter and fiscal hawk, brought the Soviet Union down with his steely resolve and soaring rhetoric (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”), and made America proud of itself again. Reagan’s record, though, was a bit different. He certainly passed massive tax cuts his first year in office, but then reversed many of them when he signed into law the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA). Former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett wrote in 2003 that “according to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history.” Moreover, Reagan also backed a $3.3 billion gasoline tax and increased the Social Security tax rate. Sure, the Soviet Union fell soon after his presidency ended, but Reagan met and negotiated with Gorbachev – the head of the “evil empire” as Reagan himself labeled the Soviet Union. As for his reputation as a fiscal hawk, it would be laughable, were it not for the fact that Reagan began the steep slide into deficit spending that inflicted long-term damage. And for a party that has worked tirelessly to destroy the civil rights of homosexuals, Reagan was a maverick in his strident opposition to the Briggs Initiative in California, which would’ve banned gays and lesbians from teaching in the public schools, and his opposition helped defeat the measure. Lastly, let’s not forget that Reagan granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in 1986, a position antithetical to current American Taliban ideology.
Any Republican today talking or governing like Ronald Reagan would earn a swift kick out of their party, labeled as a tax-raising, terrorist-negotiating, gay-loving, amnesty- granting, big spender. Yet that hasn’t stopped the American Taliban from elevating Reagan to sainthood, airbrushing out his more nuanced beliefs and actions. Republicans have been thrown to the curb for far less these days.

Owlman wrote:Isn't Romney running as a conservative? By your own list, he should win, just like Bush Jr.