The American Freedom Network

The Return of the Bob Dole GOP

Back when I was little, the GOP was the boring party of responsible adults who tried to give us good government and who did not take it upon them selves to save the world, and who did not let pie-in-the-sky, make-believe wishful spending burden their children with debt. Bob Dole is a pure-bread, rock-ribbed example of the type, as you can see here from his recent bailout comments. He was much the same in 1976, as you can see from this excerpt from his October 15th Vice-Presidential debate with Walter Mondale:

“And so he’s vetoed sixty-two bills – I think the sixty-second happened today. And I say that’s uh – a courageous act repeated sixty-two times, because much of that legislation sounded good, some of it was good, some of it we just couldn’t have unless we’re gonna fuel the fires of inflation. I don’t suggest that every veto uh – I must agree with. But I also suggest that I’m a Republican. I’m proud to be a Republican. We’re sometimes perceived, as I’ve said before, as the antipeople party because we’re not for more spending. We’re not for more government; we’re for a strong defense. We’re for peace in the world. Those aren’t very attractive to some people. They wanna know how much we’re gonna spend for this, and how much we’re gonna spend for that. Well Senator Mondale could tell ‘em that because he votes for every piece of spending legislation that comes down the pike unless it’s in the area of defense, and then he votes for every budget cut.”

This is not to suggest that Dole, or the old GOP, was without fault; it is to merely suggest that they generally behaved more like responsible adults who could balance a checkbook than like drunken sailors or frat boys. Dole was also correct in pointing out that Democrat irresponsibility extended to foreign affairs, as Wilson and FDR bumbled America into wars after running as ‘peace candidates,’ and that Korea and Viet Nam could also be chalked up to the incompetence of liberal do-gooderism run amok. This clip, widely derided at the time, speaks the unpleasant truth about what Dole called ‘Democrat Wars,” and that is perhaps the reason for the lapdog media’s howls about it. He told the truth.. They didn’t like it.

So there you have it. Before ‘deficits don’t matter’ became the standard GOP answer to spending concerns, and before Woodrow Wilson’s became the neo-cons’ patron saint, there was a saner GOP, one that commanded the support of middle America – and deserved it (most of the time).

Signs of this saner GOP reappearing are the only ‘green shoots’ that this writer sees in the current debate about socialized medicine. The Tea Party movement and Ron Paul’s ‘Campaign For Liberty’ tap into and express much of the same sentiment. Perhaps Mom and Dad are finally home, and the ‘Risky Business’ house party is over. Take away the car keys, Pops -this crowd shouldn’t be behind the wheel – they are truly ‘unsafe at any speed.’

P.S. What took ya so long, Pops? The Boy Scouts have adult leadership; I was getting jealous!