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GOP Factions & Infighting blog
Read My Lips and How the 1990 Budget Deal Led to the 1992 DefeatGeorge H. W. Bush broke a clear tax pledge in 1990 and lost his base in 1992; here is the argument for what a promise is worth in politics.Hawks, Restrainers, Realists and Nationalists on the Right, ComparedThe right has at least four foreign-policy schools, and lumping them together is why conservative arguments go in circles. A side-by-side comparison.The Parties Switched Story Meets the Record and What the Evidence ShowsThe claim that Democrats and Republicans traded places on race around 1964 deserves a fair answer from the record, not a slogan.The 1964 Goldwater Campaign Lost 44 States and Won the FutureBarry Goldwater lost one of the worst landslides in history, yet the party that came out of that defeat was the one that won in 1980.Five Strands of the American Right Compared in One TableBusiness conservatives, libertarians, social conservatives, hawks and populists compared side by side, with what the party loses if any one of them leaves.The 1964 television speech that turned Ronald Reagan into a conservative leaderA paid broadcast for a doomed presidential campaign launched the career of the man who later won two landslides, and it still teaches how to argue.Taft, Roosevelt and the Convention Fight That Split the Party in 1912Taft and Roosevelt together out-polled Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and still lost. How a convention fight handed the White House to the other side.Fusionism Was the Deal That Made the Modern Right PossibleFrank Meyer argued that libertarians and traditionalists needed each other. Here is how that bargain was struck, how it worked, and where it frays.Taft Versus Eisenhower and the Republican Fight Over the WorldThe America First versus internationalism fight is the oldest argument in the party. Here is the lineage from 1940 to Buchanan, and what each side got right.A Slim Paperback From 1960 Gave Conservatives a Platform to Stand OnGoldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative set up the 1964 fight. Here is the book, the convention, the landslide and what the losers built.Margaret Chase Smith took on Joe McCarthy from inside her own party in 1950A Maine senator proved you can fight communism and still object to a colleague's methods, and she said so on the Senate floor.Compassionate Conservatism, No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part DTwo Bush-era laws grew the federal role in schools and in senior health care. Here is how each passed, what hawks said, and what the movement learned.The 2011 debt-limit fight that produced real spending capsHouse Republicans elected in 2010 demanded cuts for a debt-limit increase and got the Budget Control Act of 2011. Here is the record and a fair verdict.FISA, Section 702 and the Fourth Amendment, What the Law AllowsRepublicans split on surveillance with a real principle on each side. Here is what the law allows, where the Fourth Amendment pushes back, and where I land.Barry Goldwater lost 44 states and won the next generation of conservativesGoldwater's 1964 landslide defeat built the movement that elected Reagan sixteen years later. Ideas can outlast an election, and principle has a price.Congress Can Only Do What the Constitution Lists and Madison Said SoArticle I, Section 8 is a list, and a list only means something if it has an end. Here is the argument, the rival view, and how to check any law yourself.Seventy Years of GOP Insurgents Versus the Establishment, in OrderA dated timeline from the 1952 convention to the Tea Party of 2010 shows that the Republican family feud is old, recurring and often productive.