The ghost of Ross Perot

The year was 1992, I was twenty years old and voting in my first Presidential election.  I was a part time listener to Rush and generally conservative.  George HW Bush had backed down from his “no new taxes” pledge and I was not as educated about politics as I am today.  I saw Bill Clinton for what he is, a liberal socialist that is the embodiment of the term “slick marketing”.  However as a young skull full of mush I must admit that I was impressed with the shiny graphs and charts of Ross Perot.  And with that I made a mistake that I hold against myself to this day.

I (and too many others) voted for Perot and we got eight years of socialism that brought about recession, reduction in the military, the gutting of our intelligence services that lead to the death and destruction at the hands of terrorists.  Like many others who voted like me we knew we had made a mistake in 1992 and so perhaps trying to slow down the socialists in the White House helped vote in conservatives into Congress in 1994.  They went to Washington and promptly gave in during the budget battle of 1995 proving that many of the leadership were only interested in getting along and people were disappointed.  Consequently Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996.

Why the history lesson / confession you may ask?  Something Rush addressed today in regard to Mike Huckabee and his talking in the center.  I feel as a reformed Perot voter I can offer a unique perspective on what Rush speaks.  Huckabee with his track record on raising taxes and growing government is not in a position to claim any conservative mantle, he’s a likable guy much like Perot.  He talks like a Clinton, playing to what his audience wants to hear.  Like Perot (and the Democrat Party) Huckabee is good at telling us what is wrong, however he shows no plans on how to fix it.  Now the Huckster hasn’t brought out the pretty charts yet but hey it’s only the primaries.

So perhaps in the fifteen years since 1992 those of us that erred in judgement and voted against George HW Bush have learned our lesson.  Be careful who you vote against because it can always get worse.  By sacrificing our conservative principles we will not be victorious in 2008 and the consequence of nominating people that seek to redefine conservatism, be they Huckabee, Romney, McCain, or Rudy, will insure that conservatism will lose in 2008 and we will be faced with the unthinkable, eight more years of Clinton.

Again I will refer to history.  In 2003 voters of California, of which I was one at the time, chose to remove the dishonest Gray Davis from office.  That was a forgone conclusion but what was a bigger decision was who would replace him.  Many conservatives knew that the state was in serious financial trouble and that it would take a true conservative to fix it.  That would come in the form of Tom McClintock, a conservative who wasn’t afraid to tell the voters what was broken and unlike others he had a plan to fix it.

Conservatives were rejected though in favor of another man that would bring slick marketing to a new level.  Arnold won and governed from the middle, didn’t make the hard choices, didn’t do enough to battle the liberals in California and today we learn that California is in the exact same financial crisis it was in 2003.  It is worth noting that Tom McClintock supports Fred Thompson for President.  We have plenty of examples of what happens when we don’t heed the wisdom of conservatism.  Hopefully 2008 won’t be added to that list.