Diana West speaks the truth
It wasn’t Rush Limbaugh who ruined conservatism over the last eight years.
Diana West says what 99 percent of Republican talking heads and strategists and self-designated defenders of conservatism won’t say.
Read her latest post to see who the real problem has been.
Hint: It’s the guy who said this…
And the guy who did this and this.
And the guy who gave us this.
And put us through this.
And the guy who stoked this and this.
And the guy who presided over this and this and this.
And this.
I second Diana West thoroughly: Rush Limbaugh is not the problem.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- Conservatism Killer « Vets On The Watch
- The Other McCain: 'Compassionate Conservatism,' R.I.P.
- Diana West: Its George W. Bush Not Rush Limbaugh Who is the Real Enemy of Conservatism | Jeffrey A. Setaro
- The Liberty Papers »Blog Archive » Afternoon Reads
- America Before And After George Bush Became President | Prose Before Hos
- Mark Levin: I’m in No Damned Mood to Surrender to These People « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Barf-worthy or Genius? Evan Thomas Says Obama Is Above Us All, “Sort of” God… He Meant “False God” « Frugal Café Blog Zone
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Categories: George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh
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If W was such a problem (and he was) why did y’all spend 6 years rubber stamping his every move (including massively expanding Medicare) only to turn on him when he pushed for amnesty?
But keep pulling for Rush “I hope it prolongs the recession” Limbo.
Are you dense?
That is the funniest thing I’ve read in quite a while.
I don’t listen to Rush – I did not even realize he was still on the air until Obama told us not to listen to him.
Does anybody know if he was advocating fiscal conservatism like Michelle was during the Bush term?
The answers are yes to #2 and yes he was to #3.
You obviously didn’t bother reading any of the links Michelle posted, which were really just snippets of Michelle’s criticisms of Bush and his administration.
And you don’t have to answer this as it was rhetorical.
Yes he was promoting conservative values during the Bush administration.
Rush bashed Bush multiple times over things like out of control spending, the drug plan and AMNESTY.
Rush said often, Bush is not a Conservative, since day one.
But like with McCain you have to vote for someone.
For too long we have let our primary system be hijacked by the left. One thing Steele should be doing is working to close the primaries.
If I had known in 2004 that W. planned to push amnesty on us, I would have done as I did in this last election, vote third party. Kerry may have spared us the first “undocumented President”.
Red State.
I don’t know if “y’all” meant MM or not, but here is her post about Medicare expansion.
LoL… Red State Skeptic… or is ith Red State Herring… back up those accusations of rubbers stamping with something tangible.
Michelle along with many solid conservative pundits have been racking GW over the coals for the last 6 years… for doing what liberals wanted… and now liberals are attacking GW for doing their bidding.
It is not the core conservative message that is changing here.
Here is another one.
I was tossed off Hot Air for expressing my displeasure with Jorge Bush a couple of years ago. Why did it take this long for some to realize he was another RINO? Makes one more inclined to believe the one world government theories…they are ALL the same! They care not for the country or it’s people. It’s all about power and what the people want is ignored time and time again. The election itself was a set-up to give us one bad apple vs another one. The Hobsons choice was a lousy direction no matter who got in office. Like many have said before….WE ARE SCREWED No tea parties or phone calls will take back this country. It will require a far greater sacrifice to turn things around if Obama brings in illegals. It may not even be possible.
The difficulty is that those on the left gave only lip service to what Pres Bush was doing when he did it. He was rarely challenged from his own side in the manner in which Pres Obama is being challenged.
The likes of Rush and Hannity would mention it, maybe once, and then move on. Rarely did they spend an entire week, day after day, hour after hour, segment after segment, repeatedly going sfter Pres Bush, the way they are going after Pres Obama.
There are two exceptions, Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court and the Immigration battle.
But what if conservatives had stood by their principles and challenged Pres Bush, I mean really challenged him, when he violated bedrock conservative principles.
I suppose he took advantage of a crisis, and we tuned much of everything else out.
Does RSS ever read the entire article orthe links provided?
George W Bush was no prize, and he sure was no conservative. (He EARNED a 25% approval)
But he didn’t earn the hate lavished on him by the left. They should have embraced him because he actualy agreed with them most of the time. If he had been a dem, they would have hailed him as the greatest president in history.
Ever unstoppable Bush-bashing continues………….
Yes!
At last!
It’s about time someone articulated the damage Bush has done to “conservatism” in the US.
Ironically, I find myself in agreement with the libtards who (albeit for different reasons) labelled him the “worst president ever”.
President Bush with his policies, did to America’s economy what the Airforce did to Iraq leading up to the Ground Assault, with the Pre-bombing campaigns.
He “Prepared the Economic Battle field” for Adolph Obama to come in with only token resistance, to his Socialist Invasion.
Bush and Rove did indeed destroy conservatism in the GOP. They destroyed the party…
He was, Rush slammed Bush pretty hard on campaign finance reform, the expansion of entitlements and immigration “reform”… Like all of us Rush was put in the difficult position of trying to support our president while disagreeing with much of his policy agenda.
I stopped trying a few years ago… Bush years are a train wreck for Republicans and for conservatism. Frankly I don’t how we rebuild the party or the conservative movement without repudiating Bush.
I personally think George Bush was a mediocre President. I honor him for keeping us safe from terrorism for seven years.
But I think he wasn’t good with the economy. I still think Jimmy Carter is the most incompetent President ever. And, true, he wasn’t good for the Republican Party.
RSS (Red State Skeptic? Really Slow Simpleton? Rash So Scratchy?) doesn’t understand how conservatives could oppose Bush on domestic policy, so he simple mind reverts to Bush bashing and conservative bashing. The poor guy just doesn’t get it – it’s not in his liberal playbook or on his talking points notes.
Turn your weapon around and fire at the enemy.
This is not smart. This is the wrong approach.
Yes, Bush spent too much over 8 years. We agree.
Can we also agree that, in only 50 days, Obama has spent 4X what Bush spent?
Do folks realize that Obama’s deficit equals 20% of the WORLD’s GDP?
Bush was an average president when we needed an above average one. obama is a REEALLLLYYYY bad president when we need a REAAALLLLYYYY good one.
The reason clinton was successful was because he faced no real crisis. Bush would have been the same if he had faced no real crisis.
Come on. How much do you remember conservatives holding Bush’s feet to the fire on Medicare debacle, one of the most egregious (and liberal!) acts of corruption under his administration. MM herself devoted one lone post to the Scully/Foster debacle, which was amazing that she did that much. When it came out that Bush’s accomplice, Tom DeLay, tried to bribe Nick Smith by offering to endorse his son in exchange for his vote, you heard not a word of it from MM (or anyone else on the right, to my memory).
Please spare me the revisionist history of the right’s great criticism of Bush prior to Shamnesty — or Harriet Miers. When it was a choice between laying low and emboldening liberals by holding the war time hero accountable, the right was Bush’s lapdog.
And here is another example of Country Club Republicans…Conservatism is what George W Bush used to get elected he is a lot more like his Grandfather who was closer to a Liberal then a Conservative.
RSS, I recommend you actualy read the articles michelle linked to.
Note the date on them. Even chap is slaping you down. Don’t make him sic his zombies on you.
On March 11th, 2009 at 11:21 am, zyzzyg said:
I heartily endorse this post and am thankful that you can say so more eloquently than me.
Two tepid posts on Medicare, only one on the corruption involved. Compare that with 1,170 posts on (or at least referring to) “Shamnesty,” after it was acceptable on the right to criticize Bush.
RSS: You know you can oppose something without going down the “chimpy mchitler” route.
It seems that Rusty – I mean, Red State Skeptic – will accept nothing less from conservative blog commenters than the same seething, visceral hatred of Bush from Day 1 that so typified the unhinged left.
Republicans, please feel free to run to the right of Bush. Thank you for demanding strict ideological conformity on every issue. By all means, throw the past leader of the Republican Party under the bus and let the world know how reliable the Republican leadership process is. All these things will guarantee Democratic majorities going forward.
That’s simply not true. Outside of national security / war issues & the tax cuts you’d be hard pressed to find something that Conservatives supported Bush on.
Now if you want to say that Republicans supported him that’s a legitimate argument. Also pointless… since this post is about what went wrong with the RNC it takes as a given that Republicans supported him. Indeed, its premise relies on that fact.
I’ve always liked and appreciated Diana’s appearances on Lou Dobbs. She almost always says reasonable and pertinent things about current events.
Not after the epic disaster of obamas policies kick in.
My only point is that criticism of Bush was much more muted prior to Harriett Miers and amnesty than afterwards.
From the page chapoutier cited to:
Notice the word “bravely.” Why was it brave? Because no one else on the right was going to challenge Bush’s corruption, especially in an election year.
Some of Bush’s policies hurt us in the 2008 election, but he still was not as bad as the Dems made him out to be. I agree he was terrible on some things, but this is nothing to what we are seeing now. I am at least thankful he kept us safe from more terrorist attacks, even though he did want to open our borders to more terrorists from the south. It looks to me like Obama will be inviting all the moderate terrorists here. I hope Rush keeps the conservatives fired up and we can make changes.
rss, maybe a shiver was running up michelle’s leg which blinded her temporarily to bush’s liberal policies. that has certainly been the case with todays media, or would you care to carry the drool buckets for mssss maddow et al. but i never hear the media say bush inherited a financial crisis despite the nasdaq collapsing from 5000 to 1400 during the summer and fall of 2000. and i never hear the msm say bush inherited a crisis because clinton let terrorism against the u.s. run rampant on his watch while he was busy not having sex with that woman and saving the bosnian muslims, which led directly to 911. and i never hear about how gw fixed his 911 stock drop in less than a year by lowering taxes. so do you really believe the dow will be back at 14k by the end of the year? mayby russia will become the leader of the world and save everyone with their vaunted central planning. that shiver up your leg is urine, and mommy needs to change that diaper.
Link:
Well, Ms. West, color me “in denial.”
I cannot bring myself to lay blame for our current lurch towards socialism at the feet of the man who kept us safe for eight long, prosperous years. I’m too appreciative.
I cannot blame the man who kept an eye on the American people’s best interests and not the polls, by establishing a beachhead from which to fight terrorists far from our shores; who secured the flow of oil to the West in a violent, unstable region, for many years to come; who brought relief to a suffering Iraq and sowed the seeds of peace that are sure to grow and spread throughout the adjacent principalities and anachronistic sheikdoms of that area in the coming decades.
I do not blame President GW Bush for our current money woes – this a world crisis, not a solely American one.
In my view, President Bush is only moderately culpable on two fronts:
1.) After 2001, he was too busy protecting the country to keep himself fully attuned to its burgeoning financial mismanagement – even when he did alert Congress in 2005 to problems in the housing market/Fannie&Freddie, the Democrats dismissed it to keep their hands clean for the 2006 election;
2.) He received and gave credence to the wrong financial advice of others – Bernanke, Paulson, even ex-Fed Chair Greenspan, etc., which led to TARP I and our socialist move Left – instead of allowing the intuitive instincts of his conservative principles to direct him.
Maybe I’m being naive; maybe I’m being deflective; maybe, in your words, I’m just plain “in denial.” But whatever I’m am, I do not “blame” President Bush.
By the way, I’m not even mentioning how the worst abuses in the War on Terror were excused for, from the collective shrug (or excuses) for Maher Arar, to explaining away Abu Ghraib as a “fraternity prank.”
Sorry, the right rolled over like a poodle for their dear leader.
I think you must not have been paying attention. There has been plenty of critisism of ‘W’ here, for not being Conservative enough.
You must also remember that in the elections of 2000 and 2004, President Bush was the only real choice we were given, Al Gore has shown he’s insane and Skerry was proved a liar.
RSS: Worst abuses??
I would say the insurgents routine use of power tools on thier prisoners and routine use of rape are FAR worse than abu gharib. Not that you care.
For a supported of Pelosi, Reed and the Chicago Thug to come in here talking about “Bush’s corruption” is freaking priceless.
RSS seems to expect nothing but an echo chamber parallel to his beliefs.
Rusty had moments of lucidity. RSS has BDS flashbacks.
I listen to Michael Savage more than to Rush, and Michael exposed Bush’s conservatism as phony years ago. Certainly, his deficit spending, even before the economic meltdown, was worse than anything fiscally done by Clinton during his last six years.
Michelle,
I agree, yet, I also must respectfully disagree — if that makes any sense. Let me see if I can make myself clear.
Yes, I think President Bush bears some responsibility — mostly because he was so focused on the war on terror that he tried, but not hard enough, in other areas. I think most people agree one major factor in Obama’s incompetence so far (aside from his dead-wrong ideology) is that he is trying to do everything. A president has to pick his battles? No?
I also think Republicans in congress bear more responsibility than Bush.
BUT! I also think we ALL bear responsibility, for not being as organized as the left. They dominate the schools, television, Hollywood, print and internet. Democrats have only Republicans to compete against and they have all that organization backing them up; Republicans, on the other hand, must fight Democrats while simultaneously fighting network news, cable news, print news, radio news (as opposed to talk radio which few non-conservatives ever hear), a highly organized left wing internet presence, not to mention the entire pop culture.
And when our 300 Spartans do not single-handedly defeat the vast organized, coordinated forces of the entire Persian empire, we complain.
I think such expectations are unrealistic and unfair.
Some points to consider:
1. Every budget president Bush submitted to congress spent FAR less and cut hundreds of useless programs than the budgets Congressional Republicans returned to him. Yes, he could have used his veto and should have.
2. President Bush and Republicans have tried over 25 times since his first budget in 2001 to reform Fannie and Freddie. Democrats blocked them at every turn. Should they have made a bigger deal about it? Yes. Should we have? Yes. They were also trying to win a war Democrats were trying to undermine and public opinion had turned against them. How much can we expect our leaders to do when the entire media and pop culture is rallying the public against them?
3. The economy is STILL tanking because Obama has (perhaps intentionally) failed to do anything to address the core problem — the banking crisis. Say what you will about President Bush’s response, but he was at least focused on addressing the banking crisis
4. Despite his wrong-headed “comprehensive” approach, President Bush accomplished more to secure the border and reduce illegal immigration than any president since Dwight Eisenhower.
5. Go back and check the polls in 2000, prior to the election. A prescription drug benefit for seniors was overwhelmingly popular. Republicans in congress were supporting a prescription drug benefit while Clinton was still president. Trent Lott said Republicans were “committed to providing this benefit”…
I guess my beef with your complaint boils down to this: how realistic is it to expect Republicans to single handedly compete and win against Democrats when the vast majority of institutions defining the issues to the American people are controlled by organized, determined liberals?
How do you convince the American people to support conservatism when the filter through which your message must pass is controlled by your opponents?
Reagan spoke over the media’s head because the press hadn’t yet figured out how to prevent it. In the ensuing decades they’ve gotten much better at it.
In the 1980’s and 90’s Conservatives made great gains because, thanks to Rush, talk radio, and later FOXNews and the internet, conservatives learned how to talk to other conservatives.
Liberal media, feigning objectivity, and unsure how to respond, felt they had to at least pretend to pay some attention.
Thus Republicans had the back up they needed to get more conservative.
Liberals in media, however, have since discovered, to their glee, that they can be far more partisan, stop letting conservatives define themselves and the issues, define us themselves, and STILL largely get away with pretending to be objective.
War is adapting. We adapted, found each other and in doing so were able to reach beyond ourselves.
But liberals have adapted and largely cut off those supply lines.
If we want to provide our politicians with the cover they need to stand up for conservatism, then conservatives must adapt again and find new ways to get our message to the public at large.
Sorry this is so long-winded and repetitive — its very difficult to edit in this tiny little window.
And lets not forget that president Bush brought us out of the dot.com Clinton recession, and staved off what by all accounts should have been a second recession after the 9/11 attacks. And he tried, something like 25-30 times, to reform Fannie and Freddie which as far as I have been able to discern, would have prevented our current banking crisis.
Let’s not perpetuate the lie that our current economy is due to president Bush’s policies, or even his failures, its due to Democrat’s successes!
Tell me one thing that any of those three has done that even comes close to a) Bush’s Medicare adminstrator telling a congressional auditor that if he released the real estimate of how many billions the Medicare expansion would cost, he would fire him “so fast it will make your head spin,” or b) Tom DeLay offering to endorse Nick Smith’s son in exchange for Smith’s vote on the Medicare expansion — which despite its Blagoesque implications, MM never actually saw it fit to report on her blog!
We’re not talking about a failure to disclose real estate earnings, or buying a plat of land. This is lying to and bribing Congress to get a $400 billion (minimum!) entitlement program enacted.
And you know the worst part? Most Republicans have no idea what was going on with the Medicare expansion. Obviously because no one was informing them!
RSS – is that the only trick you know, or can you do another one, too?
RSS: Increasing the defict in 50 days to be larger than the last 5 years of bush deficts combined and on TOP of that, introduced the largest increase in the us budget in history, mostly based on defict spending.
Next.
I agree that should have been done more often.
Now, about abu ghraib being compared to a fraternity prank…that is how I look at it too. Those slimy bastards deserved worse. Sorry, just my opinion. I am sorry the soldiers got caught, only because it made the military look stupid. The antics were indeed the calibre of drunken fraternity boys, and just as childish. If they wanted to do something that made more sense, they should have accidentally dropped a live grenade in the cells.
hintfor RSS: that increases the national debt by 33% this year alone. Not inculding spending for the wars.
Thats your guy.
OOOPPPSSS, did I do that???
LOL
“My guy” didn’t have to lie and bribe to get his program enacted.
It’s comforting to know that BDS is alive and well.
How much money did acorn get in the stimulus bill again???? You guy gave money to every single organization that supported him in the elections. You guy flat out lied about earmarks to pet projects. You guy lied about tax increases.
In fact your guy is going toincrease the defict by 30% just to pay off his debts and has lied consistantly.
No kidding, anybody would think bush was still president.
Zero. Look it up.
No, he didn’t.
No, he didn’t.
No, he didn’t.
Next.
RSS:
It is a little difficult to believe that you are that blind, but if you are there is no point in pointing out the truth to you.
out
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=acorn+stimulus+money&aq=f&oq=
son, he just proves the truth in the old saying “there are none so blind as those who will not see.”
Hear! Hear!
True, they were only following the Democrat model of appealing to voters by delivering the “goods,” but that’s not who Republicans are – we’re the party of fiscally sound government, w/ minimal taxation and interference.
The Congress as a whole, Democrats for interfering in the housing loans industry and Republicans for over spending, bears the blame for this mess – not President Bush.
MM threw a Bush bashing party and forgot to invite me. WTH?
Spot on.
Thank you for finally calling congressional republicans to task on this blog. So often, I see conservatives whine and moan about how Pelosi and Reid(admitted failures) ruined things. They cite to Congress’ low approval rankings prior to the election. They act as if everyting was all fine and dandy from 2000-2006. It wasn’t, and we’re still
payingignoring the bills today. The republicans in Congress were so pathetic, that they got voted out of power in 2006. The Republican brand was so damaged in 2008, you lost even more power in Congress, and lost the White House to a cat that was a virtual unknown up until 2004, and had very little experience.This will be the first time that I’ll ever defend Rush Limbaugh, a loudmouth cartoon character who brilliantly found a way to make himself relevant and crazy rich but:
is absolutely an accurate statement.
Wow! You’ve proven that Republicans have made the accusation that Acorn will get receive money! I must stand corrected!!
sonofdy, you obviously don’t know what those accusations are based on, but if you can make a cogent argument yourself that Acorn will receive stimulus funds, I will respond.
RSS: Isn’t your obama appointed nanny calling?
nuff said
… and says what about 90%+ of the base WILL say, illustrating once again how out of touch the DC establishment is with the rest of the conservative movement.
As far as this premise goes, I wouldn’t say Bush ruined conservatism so much as I would say he simply abandoned it (save for a few exceptions).
He definitely abandoned fiscal conservatism and free markets. And he sure as hell didn’t give a rat’s a$$ about national sovereignty.
RSS: As I said, if you are so much an obamabot that you refuse to see the truth, there is little point in talking to you because you will believe what you are told to believe reguardless. So go back to your nanny obamabot.
Which makes him far more of a democrat that a conservative.
Wrong. Look it up: I have criticized Obama many times — much more than I presume any of you claim to have criticized Bush during his first term. I just have a problem with baseless accusations. But if you can argue that those accusations are well founded, I’m all ears.
Haha.
Whatever you say obamabot/RSS
So either MM is suffering from BDS or maybe the left was on to something about 43.
RSS should go back and search the archives for what Jonah Goldberg was writing about “compassionate conservatism” in 2000 before Bush was even elected.
That adds even more evidence to counter his theory that conservatives merely rolled over for Bush and refrained from criticizing him.
TheOtherSide said: I completely missed the point.
I keep hearing how history will judge W. in a postitive light. I guess it’s still to soon. LOL.
BTW. Saturday on HBO, the great Will Ferrell will be doing a live broacast of his W. act from Broadway. It should be golden.
For any of you lefties thinking, if that’s possible, go back, check conservative talk show hosts and websites when Bush failed to veto McShame/FineImforgold campaign reform bill. Rush and others spent lots of time complaining how wrong Bush was for that move or lack of. Get your stories straight before making wild accusations, never mind, I forgot that’s all you folks do. Never let facts get in the way of a good story(lie).
On March 11th, 2009 at 2:38 pm, thirteen28 said:
I believe “W” is not truly a Socialist, but he was highly influenced by people who are.
In 2000, with Al Gore running on a promise of prescription drug benefits, Bush did a “me too”. As much as I hated to see him do the prescription drug program, he was being good for his word and keeping a campaign promise.
Bush was definitely too “open borders”, especially in a post-9/11 world.
In other areas, Bush delegated to people he trusted. Some of those people were trustworthy (like Harriet Miers, who helped produce the Roberts and Alito nominations), and others were not (like Treasury Secretary Paulson, who was a Trojan Horse Socialist).
Bush was too easily tricked by Socialists into supporting things that looked good on the surface, but were intentionally flawed under the covers…
Case in point: thinking an increase in “home ownership” was always a good thing… without realizing that ACORN/Fannie/Freddie were intentionally putting people in homes they couldn’t afford, and intentionally undermining large sections of our economy.
“W”, unfortunately, was an “useful idiot” to many of the Socialists’ plans.
RSS…another odumbo?
Everyone that displays the “if you can’t beat them, join them” bandwagon has it Exactly Wrong with me- and needs to be tossed out of the Party of Lincoln on their rears!
History will see him as an average president. That is if the historians are not biased BDS suffering morons like most these days. You know it is possiable to think of him that way instead of either satan or godlike.
Rush has a 33% approval rating. That is over 100 Million that approve him. It’s twice the number that voted for Obama.
So, you DO reside somewhere between the Twilight Zone and an X-files episode….not that it was ever in doubt, mind you.
Next you’ll be telling us how Bush caused global warming after he stole the election in 2000……
Hindsight is 20/20. For Diana West to harp on this NOW seems to be a bit moot to me. While I am grateful that we have people like MM who serve as watchdogs for the rest of us (drawing attention to W.’s prodigal wanderings from genuine conservatism), the singular betrayal of the Bush 43 presidency is NOT my main concern. After all, we were warned — many of us KNEW that W. wasn’t a conservative during the 2000 campaign when he started yammering about “compassionate conservatism”. The ensuing 8 years of fiscal irresponsibility should have come as no REAL surprise.
As others have pointed out here, W. had a LOT of help from Congress and the bureaucracy in carrying out his fiscal follies including the prescription drug fiasco, shamnesty, and all of the run-away congressional spending. THAT is my main concern. Conservatives need to face-up to fact that the Republican party is NOT “party of conservatism” any more than the Democratic party is. History over the past 5 Republican presidencies proves my point. Think about it. Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 — how many of these people were truly fiscal conservatives? Reagan pretty much stands alone. What the h*ll, even Clenis was more of a fiscal conservative than most of those guys. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve been telling people for YEARS that there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. It’s just that all of the conservative Christians that have taken refuge in the Republican party have been telling themselves otherwise — sort of muttering it under their breath, like a mantra, or somethin’.
My collie says:
Don’t look at me — I don’t have all the answers.
CyberCipher,
If you’re still reading this thread, get and read a copy of
Phyllis Schlafly’s 1964 book A Choice Not an Echo:
The inside story of how American Presidents are chosen
It’s an excellent and very eye-opening book.
You say that Reagan was different, and you are right. There is a good reason Reagan was not like the rest. The rest were all the “establishment” choice. The “establishment” choice for 1980 was George H.W. Bush, and Reagan had to battle him mightily for the Republican nomination.
I believe Reagan’s biggest mistake was allowing G.H.W Bush to be his VP, because that paved the way for Bush’s win in 1988, and then 8 years of Clinton.
The “establishment” choice for 2000 was John McCain, but McCain’s hopes suffered a big defeat when George W. Bush won South Carolina. “W.” didn’t have the same level of understanding that Reagan did about the threat posed (both externally and internally) by the godless “Evil Empire”. Bush allowed himself to be surrounded by, and trust, many people who were not conservatives, but rather part of the problem.
Where do we go from here? Ensure that a true conservative, not an “establishment” choice, becomes our nominee in 2012.