In a sign of lingering divisions on the right, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (ahem..Pro-Life liberal) blasted last week's Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest meeting of conservatives in the nation, saying it was unrepresentative of the Republican Party as a whole.
"CPAC has become increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years - one of the reasons I didn't go this year," said the former Southern Baptist minister, who enjoys a devoted following among Christian conservative voters and who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008.
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More Libertarian you say?? Hmmmm.....seems to me all that extra weight you're putting on is going straight to your brain Huck. Why so much in fact that you've lost your ability at reason; Reason Magazine that is circa 1975.
REASON MAGAZINE: Governor [Ronald] Reagan, you have been quoted in the press as saying that you’re doing a lot of speaking now on behalf of the philosophy of conservatism and libertarianism. Is there a difference between the two?
RONALD REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.
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I said it before and I'll say it again. Huckabee is no conservative by any traditional definition. He is (by his own admission) a "compassionate conservative". Lest you forget, we've had our experience with "compassionate conservatism" vis a' vis two generations of Bush's and anyone with a shred of objectivity can attest to how well that went.
4 comments:
What did you think of the straw poll at the CPAC> Pretty cool, huh?
Very cool for Ron Paul. Of course once again the punditry is trying to downplay it. Imagine the tune they'd be singing had Sarah Palin won it. I was glad to see usual suspects at the low end of the spectrum where they rightfully belong.
I am no fan of Huckabee, so I am with you there. However, am I correct in assuming both you and Beth like Ron Paul? If so I wonder which mainstream candidate would garner your support.
While I am sympathetic to some of what Paul says, I do not think he has a realistic chance of winning the nomination. It doesn't seem like any of the other mainstream potentials has that libertarian leaning.
"I do not think he has a realistic chance of winning the nomination."
The irony Steve is that when people act accordingly because they don't believe a specific candidate can win the nomination, it only becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Reagan had that libertarian bent as did Goldwater before him. Of course Goldwater didn't fair as well but to be certain he is not to be forgotten with regards to his contributions to the movement that led to Reagan's ascendency.
I can do without the populism of the candidates presently being paraded about. None of them do anything for me.
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