The Conservative Movement -- Bold Colors, Or Pale Pastels?

Ronald Reagan was such a leader. He stood for smaller, less intrusive government. He stood for lower tax rates as a means of stimulating the entrepeurial spirit that founded this great nation. Reagan stood for strict constructionalist judges who would not legislate from the bench. (That is what he stood for, regardless of the judges he was able to nominate by way of a Democrat controlled Congress.)

President Reagan believed in a strong national defense, rebuilding a US Military decimated by the neglect of the Carter Administration.

President Reagan was not only a Conservative, he was the very articulate leader of the Conservative Movement. This is a very important distinction. Because of the leftward lurch of the modern Democrat Party, the leader of the Republican Party will, by definition be looked upon as the leader of the conservative movement.

It was apparent, even at the time that he was selected to run as the VP on the ticket, that George H W Bush was never a conservative, he was, at best, a pale pastel. While campaigning for the nomination, he referred to Supply-side Economics as "Voodoo Economics." Nonetheless, as the sitting Vice President, the party chose him to carry the standard in 1988 to carry on the Reagan legacy. Fortunately for President Bush, the Democrats nominated one of the most pathetic figures in modern political history -- remember the helmet and the tank? -- guaranteeing him election.

The coalition of Reagan Democrats, social and defense conservatives, held together with fiscal conservatives to elect GHWB, but after his betrayal -- Can you say "Read my lips..." -- Republican enthusiasm waned. Even so, Bush 41 would have probably been re-elected in 1992 had it not been for Ross Perot and the fact that Bill Clinton did not run as a classic Democrat.

In 1992, Bill Clinton ran as a "New Democrat." He distanced himself from the Washington liberal elite, running as a Conservative Democrat. To hear the man in 1992, with his promise of a middle-class tax cut, he was more conservative on several issues than President George H W Bush. He was NOT conservative, a fact that the electorate would only learn AFTER the election, but at the time, the voters believed that they were voting for the conservative.

President Clinton immediately demonstrated that he was nothing more than a typical tax-and-spend liberal, jettisoning his "middle class tax cut" less than a month after taking office, instead providing the American people with, at the time, the largest tax increase in history. When he assigned his wife, the worst lady, to create a Nationalized Healthcare plan that would have destroyed the American healthcare system, the American voters rebelled.

The congressional scandals relating to kiting bad checks on their congressional accounts, and widespread abuse of the franking privileges, provided a backdrop to Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America." Among the provisions that Republicans pledged to impliment were:

FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;

SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;

THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;

FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;

FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;

SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;

SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;

EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

In addition, the Contract promised that the Republican congress would inact ten bills:

1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.

2. THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT: An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in- sentencing, "good faith" exclusionary rule exemptions, effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social spending from this summer's "crime" bill to fund prison construction and additional law enforcement to keep people secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their schools.

3. THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, cut spending for welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.

4. THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT: Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights of parents in their children's education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society.

5. THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT: A S500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts to provide middle class tax relief.

6. THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT: No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the essential parts of our national security funding to strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility around the world.

7. THE SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT: Raise the Social Security earnings limit which currently forces seniors out of the work force, repeal the 1993 tax hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives for private long-term care insurance to let Older Americans keep more of what they have earned over the years.

8. THE JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACT: Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.

9. THE COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT: "Loser pays" laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages and reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of litigation.

10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators.

With a Democrat holding the White House in the presence of President Clinton, Newt Gingrich became both the face of, and the de facto leader of the conservative movement.

That mid-term election of 1994 demonstrated that when a conservative message was articulated to the American people, they would respond. When Republicans fail, is when they fail to live up to those conservative principles on which they run.

While much of the apparent government "surplus" at the end of the 1990s was nothing more than an allusion -- Dot-com bubble; Corporate Accounting Scandal anyone? -- it was the fiscal responsibility forced upon the Clinton Administration by Newt's Contract With America that finally brought federal spending under control. Responsible federal spending, along with much needed reforms of entitlement programs brought about the longest period of economic prosperity in this nation's history.

Unfortunately for this country, personal scandal forced Newt Gingrich to resign from congress. At the precise moment in history when the Conservative Movement was poised to turn back the tide of liberalism, the movement was left leaderless. At no point since that time has there been any conservative leadership from congress. In fact, that freshman class of 1994, by the time of the 2000 election, had become just as entrenched in the Washington establishment as the Democrats who controlled congress before them; they had become pale pastels.

It was during the run-up to that 2000 election that we heard the dreaded phrase, "Compassionate Conservative." Texas Gov George W Bush, the "Uniter, not a Divider," offered us that new lexicon. It is certain that the good governmor did not mean to suggest that because he was a compassionate conservative, that other conservatives were not. Still, that was the message sent. Just as Jack Kemp thoughtlessly impuned all Conservatives when he allowed Vice President Gore to praise him as not being mean-spirited like other Republicans, Gov Bush allowed conservatives to swing in the wind with his rhetoric.

As the President, he, like his father before him, has become the de facto leader of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. While he is the leader of the conservative movement, he is not, in fact, a conservative. He has some conservative beliefs, but overall, he is not a conservative. He has shown moments of Bold Colors, but overall, he has demonstrated hiself to be a pale pastel.

Under this president we have seen the greatest expansion of both the size and the intrusion of the Federal Government since President Lyndon Johnson. No Child Left Behind expanded both the size and the role of the Department of Education, without providing any accountable way for children trapped in failing schools to go elsewhere. Medicare Part-D will, over the life of the program will ultimately cost the American taxpayers more than the War in Iraq.

While many conservatives have been understandably critical of this president over his domestic agenda, and his unwillingness to rein in any federal spending for more than six years, because of his strong stance against terrorism, his appointment of strict constructionalist judges and his tax cuts for every American who pays taxes, he has been able to enjoy the support of the entire Republican Party.

For all intent and purposes, the Conservative Movement in this country has been leaderless since 1998. President Bush has been spotty at best. As three special elections in "safe" Republican districts have demonstrated, the people will elect candidates who offer conservative values over moderates -- even if those conservatives are Democrats.

And this is what Conservatives fear most about the 2008 Presidential Campaign. In John McCain they HOPE for a conservative; they HOPE for BOLD COLORS, but they fear they will elect another moderate, more pale pastels.

Long before he became president, while campaigning for Senator Barry Goldwater for president in 1964, Ronald Reagan gave what has come to be known as his A Time For Choosing speech. From that speech;

This idea -- that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power -- is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

More than forty years later, those words are even more accurate today than they were at the time he spoke them. As a nation we have strayed even further from those unique ideals set forth by our founding fathers. Our people need a leader; someone who will once again articulate the conservative message of Ronald Reagan.

This nation hungers for that leader. This nation hungers for BOLD COLORS, not the pale pastels that both parties are offering.