Fridays with Erick Erickson: Blame Bush!
Friday, January 06, 2012
We are about to begin refighting old fights within the Republican Party. In large part we can blame George W. Bush for this. Seriously.
Bush did not leave an heir apparent to run for President and either win or lose. Consequently, we have never really had a referendum within the Republican Party on Bush's brand of big government conservatism. McCain is not a real proxy because McCain opposed Bush and a number of Bush initiatives.
But because the GOP likes orderly processes, without an heir apparent in 2008, the GOP had to go back to 2000 with McCain and refight some of these fights. Had there been an heir apparent in 2008, Mitt Romney would either have supplanted that person as the leader or been beaten in a reaffirmation of President Bush's policies.
The party has never rebooted from 2008. Now we are in the fun situation of practically carrying over the 2008 primary to fight for the future of the party. But, the two front runners are, in effect, big government conservatives. Mitt Romney introduced the nation to gay marriage (you can blame the courts in Massachusetts for the first step, but Romney did not adequately fight) and the predecessor to ObamaCare.
Rick Santorum supported No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, filibustered the National Right to Work Act, opposed repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act, championed giving felons the right to vote, opposed food stamp reform and Medicaid reform and TANF reform, supported raising cigarette taxes to pay for healthcare and on and on and on.
It really is amazing that after the successes of the Tea Party movement in 2010 to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, the two front runners within the GOP have rarely ever opposed the creeping expansion of the federal state.
—Erick Erickson
http://content.eaglepub.com/
