RSS Feed MenuIn one of his last interviews as president, George W. Bush called for a “compassionate” Republican Party and warned that the GOP must not become too ideologically inflexible: “It’s very important for our party not to narrow its focus, not to become so inward-looking that we drive people away…” the president told Fox News. “We shouldn’t have litmus tests as to whether or not you can be a Republican.”
That was good advice, even if Bush and Karl Rove arguably followed it more in the breach than the observance during their years in power. The Republican Party tends to be most successful when it attracts moderates as well as true-believing conservatives to the tent.
There is a long, often overlooked tradition of moderates in the GOP, and moderates have been an integral component of the party throughout the century and a half since its founding in 1854. Barack Obama, in his attempt to seize the political center, surely aims to claim the Republicans’ neglected moderate heritage as his own, as evidenced by his swearing-in on Lincoln’s bible and the conscious appropriation of moderate themes in his inaugural address.
Democrats remember and honor their past champions. Republicans too often forget them. Geoffrey Kabaservice, author of The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment, will help NewMajority to rediscover our neglected Republican past in a series of short profiles that reflect the varied angles of the GOP tradition. First up: Henry L. Stimson, the leading Republican foreign policy figure of the first half of the 20th century.
MSheridan // Jan 28, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Re: the safety thing…I very seldom say this because it leaves me open to charges of disloyalty I really don’t think I merit, but even before 9/11, I never felt completely safe. I was surprised at how many people WERE surprised by 9/11. I always expected (and a small number of my friends could confirm this) that we’d lose a city someday. Not the Katrina way, but to a suitcase nuke or, when I heard about them later, to a dirty bomb. One of the very first things that attracted me to Obama was his nonproliferation work with Lugar (who to his great credit had been working on it with Sam Nunn for years before). I never understood the all too common American attitude that we could afford to ignore the rest of the world forever or that international goodwill was meaningless. I wish I could say that our gargantuan efforts in Iraq had made me feel substantially safer.
Oneon1isto // Jan 28, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Wow, this thread’s totally changed gears. I’d jump back in but ummm, I’m lost. What were we talking about again? Chekote: at 9:28 that’s my favorite thing you’ve said since this site started. Not that that should matter, but if we can find common ground we can definitely find it there.
24AheadDotCom // Jan 28, 2009 at 11:53 pm
I agree with most of what Chekote said, and it might be helpful if this site could first define “moderate”. Nowadays, when it comes to immigration, “moderate” is defined by the MSM and by corrupt politicians as “supporting and rewarding massive illegal immigration.” Considering that 14% of Mexico’s working age population lives in the U.S., anyone who supports schemes that would lead to an increase in that percentage is a radical and not a “moderate”.
Oneon1isto // Jan 29, 2009 at 12:07 am
It’s a late night and I’m almost out of wine. But I really have to take issue with your “moderate” stance on immigration, unless it was hyperbole. The evil MSM has never intimated “supporting and rewarding massive illegal immigration”. They hardly shut up about our “broken borders”. Rather, the moderate view, rarely heard, would be to advocate extremely (and I mean extreme) strong border security in exchange for relaxed immigration guidelines and civilian status for illegals. The conservative argument (security) makes way for a more progressive (liberal) border control regime.
ericna // Jan 29, 2009 at 4:24 am
To quote another moderate republican: “We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of your (Americans) makeup. How can we love our country and not love our countrymen, and loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?” Sounds a bit leftist doesn’t it? Still, it was stated by one of the great republicans of the previous century. Anyone remember who?
InTheMiddle12 // Jan 29, 2009 at 4:44 am
I don’t know Ericana, but it sounds almost like Goldwater, who, in many ways, appeared Liberal in comparison to the crazy greedy folks and religious zealots that now own the GOP.
suey // Jan 29, 2009 at 5:31 am
Chekote said ” Bush is gone. Obama – the smarted man alive – is in the White House writing a letter to Ahmadinejad. You should be happy.’ Yes I am happy. No one ever died from reading a letter. Better a letter than a bomb.
MarkG555 // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:41 am
Moderate history? Lincoln was great, and fought for the right things, but he was hardly “moderate” in his day. Are you thinking of Benj. Harrison, Taft, Coolidge? Their central policy was keeping the federal government very small, and favoring big business. Is repealing social security Frum’s idea of moderate? Best I can tell, Frum wants to return to the Eisenhower/Nixon/Ford brand of Republicanism. Of course, those guys mostly governed as a minority party and got to be president only when the D’s fouled up or there was a foreign crisis.
MarkG555 // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:47 am
And what does “moderate” mean anyway. I’ll bet the folks we agree the party needs to be more moderate would disagree sharply about the content of that moderation.
Rather than throwing around vague terms, the “New Majority” should define itself by the policies it espouses and opposes. Best I can tell so far, though, NM is a Republican version of Clintonite “small ball,” a stew of nifty little ideas with no big underlying principles.
MarkG555 // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:48 am
that’s “folks who agree”
suey // Jan 29, 2009 at 7:18 am
Mark i agree with you. Where are the big ideas? The overarching strategy and striving for a new identity. If the Conservatives do not redefine themselves soon they are leaving a void that a third party could fill. As only 5 states now are considered red that is a definite possibility.
Chekote // Jan 29, 2009 at 7:41 am
I waiting to see what happens with the RNC election. If Steele wins. The GOP has chance. If not, I am opting for a third party.
larryo // Jan 29, 2009 at 8:07 am
Good morning, everyone. On the subject if immigration, the answer is obvious and inexpensive, and always has been: Congress should provide for a mandatory minimum sentence of 1 year in a federal penitentiary for anyone who hires an undocumented alien for domestic work and two years for anyone who does so for profit. The jobs would disappear and so, quickly, would the undocumented aliens. Waivers could be provided for the very few businesses that really need them. The documentation process should be streamlined for seasonal workers. Problem solved.
cdt // Jan 29, 2009 at 9:21 am
While I would consider myself a “moderate” (whatever that means), I think the problem is not that the GOP is unwaveringly committed to being un-moderate. It is responding to a confusion (ok, a usurping) of Federal power over the states.
The 14th Amendment has been (wrongly) interpreted to (essentially) blot out any authority in the states to establish laws, rules, and policies that are contrary to what someone in New York or San Francisco thinks they should be, as they define “compassionate”… the “tyranny of the majority” the Founders were so keen of warning us of (and trying to protect us from) has occurred and THAT is what gives the impression of conservative inflexibility. Yes, we ARE inflexible about that. If you want to alter what the Feds may do to empower them to do more, then we have a process to create Amendments to do that. Other than that, stop imposing immorality and libertinism as the ideology of the land. When the ACLU stands down on selective litigation of sections of the Bill of Rights it supports, then the conservative side of the aisle will stop pushing back against that kind of judicial activism.
Regardless of someone’s views on something like abortion, the reality is that many can agree that Roe v Wade (and other things like it) are bad law, as it takes the power that SHOULD be with the states, and elevates them to edicts imposed on the states.
All of the social issues that seem to be causing the great divide shouldn’t be national issues, and it really comes down to deciding how you define “compassionate.” Is it how we should behave and treat others, or do we respect (compassionately) the rights of citizens to define it differently, and be inflexible in the eyes of another? These should be local issues, decided by the states (or lower).
It is the expansion of (and complete disregard) of the limited powers of the Congress (to Article I, Section
taking “general welfare” to places it was never intended to go, as well as the idea that the POTUS is some sort of national overlord.
There can’t help but be a backlash against that (and it will be conservative or liberal, depending on the day/issue), with one side arguing against the other on what “national” policy must be, but the reality is that it should not be “national” at all.
Until (and if) we restore the power of the states through The People in their respective states to legislate as they see fit (within the very limited restrictions of the Bill of Rights and Article I Section 8), we’ll continue to have battles of “ideological inflexibility” as both sides of the aisle are way playing a tug-o-war of one ideological extreme over the other.
The only REAL compassion is in respecting the Will of the Majority in each state and locale to establish the laws, standards and policies as they see fit, and to establish as many or as few laws and regulations as they see want, respecting the rights of people in other states to do the same.
larryo // Jan 29, 2009 at 10:00 am
cdt – you are just plain wrong about almost all of this: The Fourteenth Amendment only prevents states from discriminating – depriving any citizens of the rights of all the citizens, and many of its protections have been eviscerated by Republican judges over the years; the founders enacted the Bill of Rights to protect us from the tyranny of the majority, and “conservatives” have been derogating the Bill of Rights in policy ever since; you are inflexible because you cannot face the truth about the ethical, intellectual and moral bankruptcy of your ideology; the ACLU acts to protect those on both sides of the political spectrum; Roe v. Wade was good law – Bush v. Gore was bad law, and we saw the implications of unfettered state power during the civil rights battles of the early 1960’s, beginning with the police, who (representing their local majorities) were among the worst of the worst perpetrators. You deplore the tyranny of the majority when it acts to protect people from policies based on hate, xenophobia and racism, but I would wager it was fine with you when Bush was elected. What you say in this post is completely disconnected from reality and historical fact.
realconservativ // Jan 29, 2009 at 10:30 am
As usual, you’re right David. The perfect person to take advice from is the man who started out with the Presidency and both houses of Congress and by the time he left office, the GOP had nothing. Of course, we need to give credit where it’s due. You NEOClOwNs helped destroy the GOP.
cdt // Jan 29, 2009 at 11:12 am
“ACLU acts to protect those on both sides of the political spectrum;” Cool. Then you’ll have no problem providing links to their recent cases protecting a gun owner’s Second Amendment rights or the rights of a private business owner to hire/fire as they see fit or to decide if they want smoking in their establishments, and exercise their rights of freedom of assembly and association? “What you say in this post is completely disconnected from reality and historical fact.” Right. Because it was Republicans who championed Jim Crow Laws and it was a Democrat administration who sent U.S. troops to protect students in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is Republicans who are using judicial activism rather than the voting booth to bring about radical social changes, such asy marriage… and because the “right to privacy” is written in clear language in the Constitution, and the authority to limit medical procedures is clearly detailed in Article I, Section. Thomas Jefferson never said: “On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449 OR… “The construction applied… to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power ‘to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, and ‘to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,’ goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to [the General Government's] power by the Constitution… Words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.” –Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:385. Right. It’s me who is is “just plain wrong about all of this.”
HollywoodBill // Jan 29, 2009 at 12:51 pm
cdt– Get your facts straight. It was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who sent US Troops into Little Rock Arkansas to protect the black students who were integrating the public schools. It was Democratic Governor Orval Faubus who initially blocked the integrating of the Little Rock Schools. It was Earl Warren the ex Republican Governor of California who presided over the famed Brown v Education that started the whole LittleRock 9 integration suit anyway. As for championing Jim Crow laws, it was the Southern Dems who fought for the Separate but Equal laws initially. That changed — but the Dems were the contributing force of the Jim Crow laws. There is a reason why Martin Luther King Senior was a Republican his entire life.
cdt // Jan 29, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I know, Hollywood Bill.
I was sarcism, badly executived, obviously.
cdt // Jan 29, 2009 at 2:26 pm
“It” was, rather.