Santorum: Reagan Would Be "Appalled" By To-Day's GOP

[Fuzzy Bear]

How appalled Reagan would be with today’s GOP is open to speculation.  I certainly think that Reagan would view the GOP as having gone overboard on doctrinaire conservatism to the point where the GOP was in danger of becoming a fringe party.  I certainly think that Reagan would be appalled with big money financing GOP conservative primary challengers to incumbent Republicans who were, indeed, conservatives, but not of the totally unyielding variety.  (Reagan would probably be scratching his head as to how Bob Bennett of Utah could be considered insufficiently conservative.)  

Reagan was an inclusive Republican who understood that the GOP’s Presidential landslides came from the belief (backed up by a degree of action) that the GOP sought to be the party of the American Middle Class.  There was no war on Public Employee Unions during Reagan’s years, other than PATCO (whose air traffic controllers waged an ill-fated and illegal strike that got them all canned).  There was no war on Public Education, but there WAS discussion in conservative circles as to how to improve public education through conservative means.  There was a pro-business tilt toward government, but there was not a full-scale movement to privatize the institutions of government that provided stability to a middle class society (education, corrections, social services, transportation) so that entrepreneurs could make a profit on these things at the expense of the quality of needed services to the Middle Class.  Ronald Reagan understood that government involvement was necessary for a nation to maintain a middle class society in terms of education, public safety, and transportation.  

The GOP is suffering today at the Presidential level not because of Reaganism, but because of Bushism.  It’s Bushism that launched the wars and formulated the NAFTA/CAFTA/GATT free trade policies that trashed American manufacturing.  It’s Bushism that sanctioned the war on the public sector for the economic gain of a few entrepreneurs and an attempt to promise folks that they, too, could get their kids into a religious school with a voucher (at the expense of a government commitment to public education).  It’s Bushism that has shrunk the middle class and made entry into the middle class a harder trick to pull off.

It’s not that I disagree with Rick Santorum on what he said here.  It’s that I don’t trust him to carry out what he proposes if elected President.  Is he picking up a new line now that Foster Friess isn’t writng checks for him anymore?  Maybe not, but for me to even entertain supporting Santorum, I’d have to be a bit more convinced that he’s serious about what he’s now claiming he believes.