Fri 9 May 2008
Is the GOP Still the Party of Economic Growth?
Posted by Chris Farris under Republican Party , PoliticsStill, if any of us had been secluded for the past seven years, a description of the Bush years without attribution would likely have had most any Republican assuming a Democrat had been in control. Is there an explanation for this? The first one would be that all politicians disappoint. By definition. Beyond that, given the statist direction taken by the Republican party in this decade, it’s fair to ask if it any longer represents laissez-faire growth. Many would point to the even harsher anti-growth views held by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but it seems a lot of their stances at present are pure politics.Even if they’re not, it would be hard to find an administration in modern times that has been more interventionist than the present one. That in mind, stinging losses for the GOP may be just what the doctor ordered. Indeed, maybe the pain of being out of power will force them to look inward, and in doing so, perhaps understand that when a Democrat runs against a Democrat, a Democrat always wins. ( RealClearMarkets - Articles - Is the GOP Still the Party of Economic Growth?)
June 4th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
The answer to your questions is, unfortunately, no.
I hate hearing anyone say about my party, “stinging losses for the GOP may be just what the doctor ordered.” But when a party shuts out the strongest limited-government candidate for President that it’s had in a long time, in favor of a candidate who considered leaving the GOP in 2001 and becoming Kerry’s running mate in 2004, one has to wonder just what the heck the party is trying to do to itself.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I don’t think you can say the “party shut out the strongest limited-government candidate for President that it’s had in a long time, in favor of a candidate who considered leaving the GOP”.
The voters who chose to affiliate with the GOP did that. I seem to recall the party elders, leaders and activists stumping for Huckabee, Romney and Thompson.
Ron Paul ran on a message of “We’ve got lots of problems and they are all the government’s fault”. John McCain ran on the message of “We’ve got some problems, but we’re a Great Nation and will overcome them”.
Ronald Reagan ran on a message of “We are the shining city on a hill, we can do better than this. Let get Government out of the way”.
Paul - like many libertarians ran on a negative message. Reagan ran on a positive “we can do better” message. Voters liked one, didn’t think much of the other.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Well, actually, I *can* say that. Thanks to GOP leadership, the voters were never given the opportunity to see that there *was* another choice, one who IS the strongest limited-government candidate for President that it’s had in a long time.
Huckabee’s a Christian Socialist, Romney’s a strong liberal (well, until he decided to run for president), and Thompson is… ummm… does anyone actually know what Thompson is?
Ron Paul ran on the same message that Ronald Reagan (who called himself a libertarian at heart) ran on: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” McCain ran on the message that “We’ve got some problems, but forget about the fact that I helped cause a lot of them, and just listen to my vacuous platitudes about being a great nation and overcoming problems and all that stuff. Vote for me!”
The only way anyone could claim that Paul ran on a “negative message” is if he ignored every single speech that Paul gave during the whole campaign. I’ve never seen a more positive campaign message than I saw in Paul’s this year, which is why he inspired hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people nationwide: the message of freedom.
It just doesn’t get more positive than that.