When defending their party against challenges of fiscal mayhem or outlandish government growth, most Republicans I know quickly slip into their "Party of Reagan" mantra. I can't wait to ask them how they feel to know that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has rebuked Reagan... in favor of John McCain! From the Chicago Examiner:
The governor delivered his remarks to a room full of fellow red-staters at the Fund for American Studies’ annual conference and donor retreat at the Newseum.I get the desire to be present and beyond nostolgia. Maybe Daniels has just served the wake-up call that those who wanted limited government really are under the wrong tent if they are voting Republican. Elected Republicans have done nothing but grow govenment at every level, post haste, since 1994. It's only self-deception that keeps limited government supporters voting for and contributing to Republicans.
“Nostalgia is fine and Reagan’s economic plan was good,” Daniels said. “But we need to look towards the future rather than staying in the past.” Daniels added that the GOP needed to work on uniting behind Sen. John McCain instead of constantly comparing the Arizona senator with the Gipper.
Probably, Daniels told us that for him, the most important thing is that his team wins, regardless of style of play. Forget about substance! Wear that elephant uniform, and win one for the... er...
Update: Rush Limbaugh smacks Daniels down as a 'country club, blue-blood, Rockefeller Republican'. I love the cognitive dissonance this must be causing across our state. From Limbaugh:
Hey, Mitch? Governor? Governor Daniels? Should we get over Lincoln, too? He's in the past. We just gotta go over Lincoln. This is so contrary to conservative thought. For me, on the wrong day, this could be tough to take. We're supposed to learn from our past. We are supposed to build on that which works. This is part of conservative thought! I'll tell you what. Let's just get over the founders. The founders of the country are in the past, too. Let's get over them.
Couldn't have said it better. I'll be happier when Daniels is in the past.
3 comments:
This story is, in fact, very misleading. Here’s the exact quote:
“I want to share a thought, because I don’t get this opportunity and might not again to visit with old friends and new who are as influential and as involved and as committed to this project as you are. I hope very much not to be misunderstood. I think it is time to let Ronald Reagan go. Not from our reverent memory, of course. Not ever, but as our touchstone, as our icon, as our hallmark and our reference point. Let me please explain what I mean.
When I was the age or a little more than today’s Fellows and summer participants, it used to strike me so odd that the Democrats of that day, or other public figures of that viewpoint, couldn’t quit obsessing about FDR. And what it told me as a young person at that time was they were looking backwards. They had nothing new to offer, nothing new to say. Nothing to say to me. It was a dead giveaway that they were living in the past.
Ralph Emerson once wrote that “In any place, any political system ultimately divides between the party of hope and the party of memory.” And hope is always, of course, about the future and the next generation, and that’s what The Fund for American Studies has always been about. People come and go. The greatest of leaders come and go, but ideas and ideals and principles endure. This is what The Fund communicates and holds sacred and preserves and transmits. I don’t think anyone understood that better than Ronald Reagan, who was always fixed on the future, who always spoke to the next generation, who always believed that somehow, someway, against the apparent odds of the present America, the things that we stand for would advance, and progress and prevail.”
Citation needed!
Then, the speech writer has missed the mark by poorly clarifying the main thrust of the speech itself.
Governor Daniels isn't a "blue-blood" Republican, but instead a subversive Republican (or maybe neo-Republican). I think he meant exactly what he said. Reagan is so 80's. Time to move on.
Traditionalist Republicans should all have a twitch in their cheeks whenever the Governor speaks.
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