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A Conservative Republican Challenge to George W. Bush
by Bob Bowman (November 2003)
A few months ago, I was contacted by some folks in New Hampshire and asked to run in the New Hampshire primary as a conservative Republican.
This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. After all, I used to be a conservative Republican. I was a supporter of Barry Goldwater in his race against Lyndon Johnson. Yes, I was a Goldwater Republican! True, I didn’t agree with him on everything, but I knew Barry Goldwater personally and believed him to be an honest man. I don’t think there would have been a “Gulf of Tonkin” incident on his watch. And we would not have lost over 55,000 troops in a 10-year war in Vietnam.
As it turns out, the challenge to Bush from the right isn’t going to happen. It’s a matter of my health and a lack of money. But it was a great idea.
When you think about it, George W. Bush is anything but a traditional conservative Republican. Now Senator Bob Taft of Ohio was a conservative Republican! He was known as “Mister Republican.” And what did he and others of his time stand for? They stood for three things: (1) fiscal responsibility, (2) avoidance of foreign entanglements, and (3) protection of individual rights as guaranteed by the Constitution and the bill of rights.
So how does George W. Bush stack up in these three areas of traditional Republicanism?
(1) Well, changing a $240 billion surplus into a $480 billion deficit in two years can hardly be called fiscal responsibility! Until Reagan and the two Bushes, Republicans had always stood for balanced budgets and paying off the national debt. But no more. Reagan ran up more debt than all the presidents before him combined. Bush the First continued the trend. But Bush the Second seems determined to outdo them both. He is clearly the most fiscally irresponsible president in our history.
(2) Senator Bob Taft was always being accused of being an isolationist. He really wasn’t. In fact, he was an early and strong supporter of the United Nations. He strongly endorsed the rule of law between nations. But his aversion to foreign military entanglements was so strong that he was reluctant to see us involved in World War II. This preference for avoiding foreign military ventures was common among the conservative Republicans of his day. George W. Bush, on the other hand, seems to want to start a new war every year — and with much less justification than there was for World War II. We will be lucky to get him out of office before he takes on North Korea, Syria, and Iran as well. His foreign policy is the exact opposite of Bob Taft’s.
While Bob Taft tried to isolate the US from military conflicts, he wanted us to be a responsible member of the United Nations. Indeed, his only criticism of the UN was that it wasn’t strong enough to enforce international law. George W. Bush, though, while using force to intervene in the internal affairs of other nations, has sought to undermine the United Nations at every opportunity. He denigrated the inspection regime that the US had imposed on Iraq through the UN. He flouted the will of the Security Council, including our closest historical allies. He withdrew from, violated, or ignored treaty after treaty. And he violated international law and the Nuremberg principles which the US instigated by his unprovoked attack on Iraq. He has shown utter disdain for world opinion and has alienated both friend and foe with his irresponsible and arrogant go-it-alone cowboy attitude. There is absolutely nothing in traditional Republicanism to foreshadow this!
(3) George W. Bush and his cohorts Ashcroft, Perle, Poindexter, and Rumsfeld with their “Patriot Act” and their detention of American citizens have done more to destroy the Bill of Rights than all our enemies combined.
The Republican Party must be rescued from the imperialist neoconservatives and their hireling George W. Bush. Some Republican ought to be able to do very well in New Hampshire pointing all this out. I’m disappointed it won’t be me.
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