From: mykes@shell.portal.com (mike myke schwartz)
Subject: Re: Treat Bush Like A Loser
Organization: Portal Communications Company
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 22:22:30 GMT

koppenhoefer kyle cramm (kkopp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: 
:   Here's a thought on which I should get flamed from both sides:
: 
:   Bush is a loser ( both figuritively and literally ).  The reason that he is
: a literal loser is an issue for debate in the republican party.  My theory is
: that he lost because he was not a strong ideological republican such as Reagan.

I made a prediction very early in the election/primary season that Bush would
win, and win big.  He is a very good politician and hardly a loser.  He did
something that no other former vice president has been able to achieve (at
least in the last 60 years) by winning the election after his president
left office at the end of his term.  Specifically, Nixon lost in 1960.
LBJ became president because of JFK's death.  Ford became president because
Nixon resigned.  Truman because of FDR's death.  That is not an indication
that Bush is a literal loser.

What made my prediction of Bush's sure landslide victory not come true was that
Bush clearly chose to run to lose.  I don't think he felt the job was worth
the grief of the harassment of him, his family, and his close friends.
Ever notice how he did a lot of his work from his boat, far away from
special persecutors and hostile members of the media?

Ever see the victory tickertape parade given to the soldiers returning from
the Gulf (NY city)?  Millions of people cheering, throwing confetti, etc.
60 seconds of that as a campaign commercial would have had so much "feel
good" quality to it that Bush would have won easily.  Keep in mind that
in spite of 10 million more voters in 1992 than in 1988, Clinton got only
1 million more votes (roughly) than Dukakis got in 1988.


: The liberals have tried to label the last twelve years as the Reagan/Bush 
: years.  However, it should be made clear that the first 8 and last 4 years
: were extremely different.  Bush sold out the ideas of the republican party and
: it lost him the election!
: 

You are right about 8 of Reagan, 4 of Bush.  I agree with you.  So does Milton
Friedman :)

Bush did not sell out the ideas of the party.  Going into 1989, the first year
of his term, any man but Reagan or Kemp would have had a rough time of things.
If you say Bush sold out on Reagan's ideas, I'd agree.  But Reagan ran for
president in 1964 and lost.  He ran for president in 1976 and lost.  He wasn't
exactly representing the ideals of the republican party either.

:   With that said, and the election lost, it is time for the republican party
: to ask itself what's next for George Herbert Hoover Bush?  I think that it is
: time to banish Bush like the bad leader he was, and stop coddling him as if
: the election was one big liberal media conspiracy.  
: 

What's next for Bush?  Total vindication in the Iran-contra thing, just as
he was vindicated in the October Surmise thing.  And if the fascists are not
allowed to alter the history books, Bush is going to look like the fine
president he was - especially after 4 years of clinton.  If clinton is to
succeed, he will likely do 99% of what Bush did and proposed to do all along.
If clinton fails, then we all will wish that we had 4 more years of Bush
anyhow.  Bush can't lose.

:  I have heard Rush make the point that Bush lost because of some trickery one
: too many times!  Rush, as the conservative media influence, must stop treating
: Bush with kid gloves and start pointing out all of Bush's follies.  He could
: launch a successful attack for the Republican Party by showing where Bush 
: betrayed conservative ideals and how it lead this country into an economic
: downturn with skyrocketting debt.

You didn't listen to Rush during the primaries, obviously.  He constantly
complained about Bush's policies, and made similar claims to yours.  Rush
flamed bush for signing the quota bill, the tax hike, etc., etc.  He may
have done much more harm to bush because of this than he did by pushing for
Bush when he became the most tolerable of the candidates with a chance to
win.

What conservative ideals did Bush betray?  Didn't his 35 vetoes count for
anything conservatives stand for?  Without the debt skyrocketing, we'd
be paying $3+ per gallon of gas, and people with money in savings and loans
that failed (with help of the Keating 5) would have lost half a trillion
dollars.  Imagine that kind of hit to middle class folks.  As for the
economy in general, it was nearly as successful as Reagan's first term -
in fact, the recession in 1982 was a lot worse.

Cheers.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh