Isilion

There are folks who are actually touting this unmitigated drivel as a reason to be excited by Fred Thompson. They actually expect Republicans to be inspired and filled with a sense of joy and hope for America because “Fred Thompson reconsidered running for reelection after 9/11 but later decided to handle things on his own. He was soon seen entering the Middle East with a bottle of tequila in one hand an a handgun in the other. They’re still counting the dead.”

Give me a break.

I hear lots of Whoot! Whoot! but if you want to win the dispirited Republicans I’ve been talking to over the course of the past few months (yes, believe it or not I am a registered Republican who actually donates money to my local party committee and turns out to do things like volunteer at the GOP booth at county fairs in one of the most hardcore Democratic counties in America) you going to have to tell me his position on actual policy issues like abortion, government spending and any number of other conservative issues.

Even though the debacle that constituted the 2006 congressional elections was primarily about one issue–the war–there is a great deal of merit to the argument that a contributing factor was the fact that the GOP has completely abandoned its traditional platform of limited government, states rights, low taxes and fiscal responsibility. I was alive when a great Republican said “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

I was too young to understand what was at stake when Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson, but I remember how he was portrayed as a war-mongering racist throw back to the 19th century and I have lived through the consequences. Today I understand what Goldwater represented. Except for that brief moment when Ronald Reagan talked the talk (but didn’t quite walk the walk) the GOP has abandoned everything Goldwater stood for. Mitt Romney is no Barry Goldwater, Rudy Giuliani is no Barry Goldwater, John McCain (a truly tragic figure) is no Barry Goldwater and Lord knows Fred Thompson couldn’t even play him on TV.

Give me a candidate who walks, talks and votes like Barry Goldwater and I’ll give you a Republican party that can truly build a shining city on a hill. Till, then I hope your ready for Clinton II.