GOP, MIA?

Here is the famous editorial from Sunday's Manchester Union-Leader:

Had there been any doubts about the direction the Republican Party is headed, they vanished last week when Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie visited New Hampshire.

During a cheerful and pleasant meeting (that’s the kind of guy Gillespie is) at The Union Leader offices, the party’s new chairman, energetic and full of vigor, said in no uncertain terms that the days of Reaganesque Republican railings against the expansion of federal government are over....

They ran a follow-up editorial today:

.... Over the course of an hour-long meeting with Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, we took great care to give him every opportunity to explain himself fully so that nothing could be misunderstood. The result was a surprisingly frank admission that the Republican Party defines “fiscal responsibility” as increasing the federal budget at “a slower rate of growth” than the Democrats (his words).

We asked him three times to explain why President Bush and the Republican Congress have increased discretionary non-defense spending at such an alarming rate, and why the party has embraced the expansion of the federal government’s roles in education, agriculture and Great Society-era entitlement programs.

“Those questions have been decided,” was his response. The public wants an expanded federal role in those areas, and the Republican Party at the highest levels has decided to give the public what it wants....

We are, I think, finding out that "compassionate conservatism" was code for "Democrat Lite".

See Is the Bush Administration Really Conservative? and Is the Republican Party Really Conservative?

P.S. Thanks to The Mighty for the notice.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/03/03 07:38:31 AM
Categorized as Political.