The Gipper Won't Win This One

[babylonsister]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/03/the_gipper_wont_win_this_one.php

The Gipper Won't Win This One
Robert L. Borosage
May 03, 2007


Robert L. Borosage is the co-director of the Institute for America's Future. This article was first published in the Chicago Tribune.


As Republican contenders for the presidential nomination gather for their first debate Thursday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. The vast majority of Americans have given up on George Bush, the sitting conservative president. But the die-hards who still support him are loyal Republican primary voters that no Republican candidate can afford to offend.

How can the contenders distance themselves from Bush’s failures without alienating their own base? Expect them to invoke the conservative icon Ronald Reagan early and often. They’ll call for a return to the faith, pledge to follow in the footsteps of the Gipper and promise a new “Morning in America.”

But the Gipper can’t save them. Bush’s signature failures—the war in Iraq, Katrina, Enron and the corporate scandals, failed tax and trade policies, the attempt to privatize Social Security, the posturing around Terri Schaivo and stem cells – can be traced back not simply to the conservative ideology and ideologues that sired them—but to the core conservative doctrine that Reagan championed. The Gipper can’t lead Republican candidates out of the wilderness because, to paraphrase him, his conservatism is not the solution to their problem; his conservatism is the problem.

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[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. Exactly. For those of us who were around for Reagan's presidency, the Bush

presidency is more of the same, only far worse.

Reagan's "values" are what set the stage for the current catastrophic situation in which we find ourselves.

If they hearken back to Reagan, it will provide joy to only a small number of rabid RW'ers. The rest of us are going to be disgusted by the blatant attempt to drag us back in time 20 years. MKJ