Who would you say is an actual example of a "compassionate conservative"?

[ButterflyBlood]

are there any today?

[jeter]

1. um....no.

:)

[Isere]

4. It's an oxymoron

I don't see a lot of folks rushing in with their suggestions.

How about the governor of Alabama who tried to raise taxes to pay for social services? If he were really compassionate, he wouldn't stay in the repugnant party.

[burrowowl]

2. CC is an oxymoron

nt

[Vitruvius]

3. You just gave another definition of the "empty set".

n/t

[southern democrat]

7. I guess when a rich dude lets his gardener use a weed eater

instead of a pair of siccors.

[ComerPerro]

5. I knew one

But he is liberal now. Thanks, Bush!

[sexybomber]

6. I have one friend who is a fiscal conservative

but more of a moderate on social issues. He's the only Republican I know who can actually argue a point and have it make sense. I mean, I disagree with almost everything he says, but we both don't hold each other's politics against one another. Altogether a sane guy... hates Bush with a passion, thinks he's a bumbling idiot, is considering voting Democratic just to spite him. :evilgrin:

But he's the only one I can think of.

[LightTheMatch]

8. George Ryan... ?

Possibly George Ryan, former Illinois Governor, who commuted all those death penalty sentences.

[ButterflyBlood]

9. He was more of a RINO though from what I heard

and in 1998 interestingly his opponent was a DINO.

[Creideiki]

16. George Ryan was labeled RINO

because he was essentially Pro-Choice and was willing to pay for infrastructure improvements throughout the state that had been left undone for decades. Illinois is capable of producing moderate Republicans still. After the spanking the Republicans received last election, we might see more of them next cycle. Currently the only two Republicans in statewide office are a pragmatist that occasionally breaks party lines (Fitzgerald) and a moderate (Judy Barr-Topinka). Fitzgerald's quit the party now, so...

I guess if all moderates are RINOs (and I know some idiots that hold that belief), then Ryan was a RINO. Otherwise, he was actually a good thing for the state overall.

[ButterflyBlood]

19. go read Free Republic

everyone from Henry Hyde to * to Bill Pryor has been called a RINO there.

[Creideiki]

20. No thank you--I value my sanity :) n/t

[scarlet_owl]

21. Yeah, that was nice of him, but....

He was involved in what was known here in Illinois as the "License for Bribe" scandal. Meaning his office knowingly gave (sold) trucking licenses to unqualified drivers who did not go through training. Some of these truckers then went on to get into accidents on the road and kill several innocent people. He left his office in shame. While I applaud what he did with the death penalty, his time in office was the most corrupt in Illinois history. Also, my mother-in-law has had to deal with him on the phone lots of times, and he has always been rude to her. He doesn't rate too high on my list of compassionate people.

[JasonBerry]

10. Yeah, I can think of one

Former Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield. He didn't seek re-election in 1996. A great guy who was a Christian but a LIBERAL Christian who opposed the religious right. He was VERY anti-war and moderate-liberal on economic issues. He wrote a book called CONFLICT AND CONSCIENCE that had a great impact on me.
http://www.speaking.com/speakers/markhatfield.html

[KC21304]

13. Hatfield would be my choice too.

In my mind he was what you would call a true conservative. They don't make them anymore.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. My choice, too

The only Republican I've ever voted for.

[proud patriot]

11. My Grandparents

:D

[unfrigginreal]

12. A few from the Northeast...

listing them in order from most to least "compassionate"...

Lincoln Chafee
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins

I believe that there are others as well, I just haven't paid enough attention to them.

[Creideiki]

17. Possibly a few in the upper midwest, as well

I had a friend in college that was a moderate Republican doing an internship for one of the Washington State representatives back in 93-95. The purges were already in full swing at that point. It's pretty close to political suicide to admit it.

Aside from political figures, maybe Arianna Huffington would still accept a conservative label.

[Syrinx]

14. Perhaps Bob Riley, Governor of Alabama...

Judging by his failed attempt to reform the unjust state tax structure. But it's really too early to tell.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. The best example of a CC I've heard is Ebeneezer Scrooge giving....

Bob Cratchit Christmas day off.

[Hippo_Tron]

18. A friend of mine...

He's a Republican but he criticizes Bush and Denny Hastert for being ineffective and Rush Limbaugh for not being able to debate anything he says. Bob Dole might be one but that's going out on a limb. Ronald Reagan would've been one if hadn't produced the satanic spawn that were his followers. Perhaps John McCain but it's kind of hard to get over his corruption.

[Creideiki]

22. Corruption?

I'm from Illinois. Corruption don't mean a thing. ;)

[demgrrrll]

23. Rove found this term while reading Olasky in 1993 (per Conason)

and realized that there was great propaganda value in the phrase.
GWB adopted the phrase for his political campaigns obviously at Rove's suggestion. I think the phrase was never meant to have any real substance or application. They are incredibly cynical.

[Romberry]

24. Ike

Of course he's dead and by today's standards he was a flaming liberal.

http://geocities.com/hushreport/soul_of_the_party.htm

The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.

First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.

Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.

Third: Every nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.

Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.

In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true peace.

This way was faithful to the spirit that inspired the United Nations: to prohibit strife, to relieve tensions, to banish fears. This way was to control and to reduce armaments. This way was to allow all nations to devote their energies and resources to the great and good tasks of healing the war's wounds, of clothing and feeding and housing the needy, of perfecting a just political life, of enjoying the fruits of their own toil.

...

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.

The worst is...war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system...or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Today? I'd say that Bob Riley (governor here in Alabama) may qualify. (I would not have said that prior to his push for tax reform here.) So might Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snowe and, sometimes, (depending on the issue, the day, the temperatue, the wind direction, the alignment of the stars and what he had for lunch...) John McCain.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

25. Jack Kemp

His heart was in the right place with HUD. He only stepped all over his tongue when he ran with Dole because he had to back off of his previous positions (opposition) on two divisive and racist ballot initiatives in California.

[PurityOfEssence]

27. Jim Jeffords, Lincoln Chaffee

Although the term is more than just a bit of an oxymoron.

[Creideiki]

29. Agreed on the oxymoron part

It requires the person to maintain and practice some concepts. It also requires a lot of work that I think people aren't ready to put in.

[friendofbenn]

28. most of the right-wing christian democrat parties

in mainland europe are to the left of the left in the u.s and britain