Striking back

Over on Impacted Wisdom Truth I was exposed to something I want to smack down on two fronts.

In “The Perot Gene” he claims that Perot was a candidate born out of republican frustration. As a former Perot youth volunteer I can tell you that it is simply untrue. In the Sarasota, Florida Office their were 2 republican Perot Supporters for every 3 Democrat supporters. And based on talking with other past and present Perotistas out there this trend applies in much of the rest of the United States. More conservative democrats were behind Perot then angry Conservative republicans.

Now had every angry Republican put his chips in for Bush he might have won, but also if every angry conservative democrat went for Clinton or Bush out of the Perot Core it would have changed the rules of the game. Clinton and the first President Bush did not rock a whole lot of people’s worlds.
Clinton ran a better campaign in 92, Bush ran a worse won and it is very hard to go out on the road for two back to back 8 year terms in the modern era.

But that is not what has ticked me off. What has yellowed up my wheaties and Irished up my blood is the sense that I am the problem because I disagree with the president. Look at the democrats from 92-00 everyone was kept disciplined and on the reservation. Look at what we see now in the 05 Stark Raving Moonbat Party (formerly the Democratic Party). They went from a respectable force in American politics to the party of Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and Cynthia McKinney in 5 years because they were held to a totalitarian standard of obedience and fealty to the white house.

The Republican Party has in the modern era been the party of internal debate that goes external. Do we want to become the Party of Alan Keyes and Pat Buchanan? No we certainly don’t. Our ability to publicly debate these matters goes to the strength of our party not a weakness.

But even beyond this, the cries from those of us in the party back bench lay exactly at the feet of the President. There is no heir to give us “4 more years” so we all bite our tongue to be nice to the crown prince. We’ve been abandoned on Immigration, Border Security, Federal Spending, Size of Government, and a host of issues by this president. Ron White explained it like this “I’m a good dog, but if you don’t pet me once in a while you’ll have trouble keeping me under the porch.” Had the president given us some more of what mattered to us we might not be seeing this backbiting from the conservatives in the party. I’d have not liked Miers but I’d have been an outlier but if the President had worked more to give his base something he might not have this outright rebellion.

Because the President has failed to give his base a reason to stay on the reservation, we are jumping the reservation. But it is more then that. We have the Julie Myers appointment which was ludicrous, we have “Brownie” who was hardly an impressive figure, you have Al Gonzales who isn’t a literalist or a strict constructionist whom has been tolerated but when more loyalistas are put into place it is part of a pattern of thumbing your nose at the folks in the trenches by the President. Unlike LBJ who finally started to get a good run of advice by going with people who were loyal to him and not to JFK the more the President listens to his inner circle the more the more he does things that are unimaginative and utterly bad for the country.

Do I care she isn’t a judge. Not really.

Is it just that she is the President’s lawyer? I think the same people who are saying trust the President would have cried bloody murder if Bill Clinton did it. But I don’t think a White House Counsel is out of line per-say. I do think though with the White House Counsel’s office and the role it plays in telling the President X is legal and Y is illegal makes appointing the White House counsel problematic.

In the end we have people who have more of a fire and intellectual energy in the conservative movement who would be tried and true loyalists to the cause of the constitution. With the exception of his handling of election 02 and 04 the President is playing conservative poker. He’s not betting on a lot of hands. He isn’t putting his chips out there. And conservative play works some of the time but some time you just have to gamble. You just have to read the guy across the table and know either A) he has nothing or B) you can push him into losing the hand. Bush has singularly from Election 2000 to present had (minus two hands) played his game real conservative. That is why the President is short stacked at the table.

We will lose election 06 and election 08 if we don’t say “this is not working” and change. And those people who say “go along and be along” will lead us into a loss.