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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (411762)	6/5/2003 8:35:45 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Gingrich was responsible for the victory in '94, which made him effective leader of the party. He even campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates in a way usually reserved for presidents. Dole, moreover, was a rather effective majority leader under Reagan. It is, in any event, untrue that the public "finally recognized the domestic enemy foe what it is", or Clinton would not have enjoyed so much support during the impeachment contretemps. What is true is that Newt did a superb job of marketing the Republicans. However, his majorities depended upon moderate Republicans, and he also did a fine job of retaining those majorities by treating that faction with respect. Newt did not especially cave. Rather, he lost the PR initiative, and allowed Clinton to grab too much credit. Shutting down the government is a dangerous game, and polls showed that the Republicans were taking the blame. Nevertheless, the problem was not with the deal itself, but with the aftermath, which gave Clinton a second wind. The reality is that the dynamic changed with Ronald Reagan. After Reagan, the Republican Party had a degree of credibility it had not enjoyed for years. It took time to fully exploit because a lot of Democrats in Congress are moderate or conservative, and thus are not ripe for removal. But the backlash against the first two years of Clinton's first term did the trick, as he ran as a moderate, but moved left in the White House. Still, the balance of power is in the hands of moderates in both parties, and therefore it is hard to get the ideological majority that would permit a free hand in Washington. In that sense, the electorate is being conservative: it does not want any big schemes to disrupt the body politic, but prefers incrementalism.......