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Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Conservatives to Sarah Palin: Come home!
When Sarah Palin was chosen by John McCain as his running mate, conservatives cheered. John McCain was not someone many conservatives trusted, and for good reason–he was a liberal Republican. McCain didn't make it through the Republican Party's primary process because of the support of self-described conservatives, but because of votes from moderates and liberals. His record in the Senate was pretty unambigous:
"[John McCain] was an opponent, on moral and fiscal grounds, of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the rich. He was also a fierce opponent of the extreme elements of the religious right. He was a proponent of global-warming legislation, the Law of the Sea Treaty, a moderate immigration bill, expanded public financing of elections, a tobacco tax, and many other liberal reforms."
McCain's "base problem" were largely solved whe he picked Sarah Palin, a plucky, small-town, pro-life, fiscally conservative reformer as his Vice Presidential candidate, but some conservatives still aren't sold.
The American Conservative is a traditionalist anti-war conservative magazine, their October issue includes a thoughtful Open Letter to Sarah Palin about foreign policy from the magazine's editors, touching on Russia, Israel/Palestine, and Iran:
You’ve given new life to a party whose brand was bankrupt. You’ve energized a campaign that was embarrassing its own partisans. Across America, crowds flock to see you—not that old man who barely wheezed his way through the primaries. If John McCain wins, he will owe you, as the guy in the undisclosed location says, “Big time.”
...The party that championed the things you prize—individual liberty, fiscal restraint, and a strong defense—has trampled civil rights, pushed us to the brink of insolvency, and broken our Armed Forces. After eight years of Bush, even diehard Republicans are glad to see him go. You might have noticed the elephant not in the room in St. Paul.
There’s a better way. In fact, you figured it out in the 1996 presidential primary when you sported the flair of the leading pro-life candidate . (Your minders would prefer that we not mention his name. It triggers their Tourette’s.) [They're talking about TAC founder Pat Buchanan] As you surely know, even beyond social issues, he represents a strain of conservatism that offers a consistent ethic of life and philosophy of limited government. It was not a coincidence that the most pro-life candidate in ’96 was also passionately noninterventionist.
...You surely see that the Bush policies have come to a dead end. If the millions poised to vote for you wanted four more years, the president’s approval rating wouldn’t be 25 percent. This isn’t because Republicans dislike Bush personally or disagree with his positions on energy and taxes. It’s because they know that his main legacy—the Iraq War—is a disaster.
Thankfully, they don’t think you’re like him. They see in you someone like themselves—a patriot and a mother. The Middle Americans waiting hours to hear you speak don’t want the United States to be defeated, and they don’t want Iraq to be a haven for al-Qaeda—something it never was before the invasion. They are pleased that the surge has made it more possible to leave because they don’t want to send their boys back for a third or fourth tour. They want America to come home—not because she’s weak but because she’s wise. They hope that you are, too.
Posted by Kalim Kassam on October 1, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
Regardless of if I agree with her belifes on some issues or not, her interview with Katie Couric pretty much erased the little bit of credibility she may have had. It reminding me of the Miss Teen USA disaster.
Posted by: Pete | 2008-10-01 6:59:01 PM
Did you know that Joe Biden has a gotten earmarks for a bridge project in Delaware that has had to be redesigned 3 times. It has also had contract problems and is years behind schedule. It is much more wasteful than the bridge in Alaska that wasn’t built See the full article on Joe Biden's Bridge to Nowhere at http://bicyclespokesman.com/joe-bidens-bridge-to-nowhere/
Posted by: Mike | 2008-10-02 8:04:54 AM
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