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Look at his record as President. He was not an ideologue. To the contrary:

1) He was tough on defense but had the vision to negotiate arms reduction with the Russians from a position of strength. He was the only president to propose arms reduction. An ideologue would have never sat down with the USSR and would have never reduced weapons.

2) He got through the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the most significant piece of Tax Reform since 1954. It wasn't the pure flat tax that many advocate, but it was revolutionary for the country. An "ideologue" would not have supported the legislation.

3) Reagan saved social security without tax increase. An ideologue would have let it die.

4) His insistence on SDI when the whole universe was against him on it.

Those are just some brief examples. Reagan's philosophy in 1980 was not the Reagan of 1964. He grew wiser and more pragmatic and was indeed a revolutionary idealist thinker who could deal with anyone whether his friend or foe alike. Let us not re-write history. An "ideologue" would not have been able to get anything done especially when you had an antagonistic Democratic congress to deal with.

I suggest y'all read Gaddis' "The Cold War" especially the chapters on Reagan and you'll see that he was much more of a statesman President with vision and principle than you would imagine.

Sadly, there are no Reagans anywhere right now. Great men like him come around maybe once or twice in a generation.

He was a strong advocate of modern conservatism which is sadly perverted by those on the left and the right, but his views were not entrenched in dogma and parochialism (such as those views espoused at the time by the John Birch society, Bob Jones, and the ugly side of the extreme right).

Cigar Mike,

You are changing the definition of "ideologue" to fit your argument.

For the record according the American Heritage Dictionary and ideologue is:

An advocate of a particular ideology, especially an official exponent of that ideology.

That doesn't rule being pragmatic and being inclined to compromise. An ideologue isn't necessarily an inflexible dogmatist. There's a big difference between compromising and "living to fight another day" than to start out with a position very similar to those who are ostensibly your political opposition.

You give perfect examples of how Reagan managed to reach certain objectives which were the objectives of the conservative movement through a course of action that were not necessarily a straight line.

The problem with McCain, of course is NOT that we differ with him in his tactics it's that we with him in his OBJECTIVES. As far as I can see the only objectives that McCain has are to be popular with the media so that he can get himself elected. Beyond that, there's no "there" there.

What possible objective can McCain have in common with conservatives when he proposes "cap and trade" on carbon emissions for U.S. industries? Conservatives are skeptical about man-made global warming and there are significant members of the scientific community that agree with us. McCain is taking the exaggerations and misrepresentations of people like Al Gore and the United Nations at face value. Of course who benefits from such a course and who is negatively affected. I think you can be clear that Ronald Reagan would never impose a unilateral tax based on the biggest political hoax ever.

As Mark Levin said, Reagan challenged his party, but he did it from the RIGHT. He challenged the party to move RIGHT and in the process swept in a bunch of people who had heretofore been independent or Democrats. John McCain is attempting to do the opposite. He's Challenging from the left, trying to get the party to accept "moderate" and liberal points of view. It's a recipe for disaster that blurs the lines between the two parties. It may serve him to achieve his ultimate goal of being president but its a defeat for those of us who think conservatism is the thinking man's ideology.

There is simply no way to characterize McCain's ideology. There's a saying, you know, that fidel no es comunista, es fidelista. Well McCain is not a conservative, he's a McCainite.

No thanks.

Webster's defines the term as follows:

1 : an impractical idealist : theorist 2 : an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology

In my view, I see those that adhere to parochial and dogmatic beliefs as following in that category.

perfect example: communists; fascists; religious fundamentalists.

To be an idealist and an idealougue as defined herein are irreconcilable.

Again, I'm only talking of Reagan here not anyone else. And to paraphrase and old Dem and i'm sure you'll agree with me:

Neither McCain nor anyone else in either party left or right are Ronald Reagan. Reagan did not merely espouse an ideology, he saved our nation and the world because he had vision, courage, and was a hell of a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for.

While many laud Reagan for whatever self serving interest, those pundits don't do him justice.

Well I disagree with Webster's definition. None of the three dictionary definitions at dictionary.com refers to being impractical, but rather simply being an advocate of an ideology. McCain is a lot of things but he is not an advocate of conservative ideology, and to be truthful no ideology that I can discern. McCain simply does what McCain thinks best. His guide is his own conscience rather than an organize principle through which he weighs his decisions. What that creates is a situation where his policies are arbitrary and capricious. Do you disagree that McCain's recent senate record is arbitrary and capricious? Let's see he wants to ban Ultimate Fighting, limit free speech because of the "corrupting influence" of money in the political process.

It's important to have organizing principles. For example conservatives have a core principle that government should only do what the people can't and that the Federal government should only do what the states can't. McCain clearly doesn't believe that.

Also conservatives believe that taxation is a necessary evil. It's a cure that can be worse than the disease if applied to liberally (pardon the pun). Conservatives believe that taxation should not be used to incentivize certain behaviors. Conservatives are against such social engineering. Clearly John McCain doesn't share this viewpoint with conservatives. His current proposal for cap and trade CO2 taxes is a dagger in the heart of that principle.

Just because Ronald Reagan didn't achieve all of the goals that he had and that he had to compromise some of the "like to haves" to get some of the "must haves" doesn't mean that he didn't want those "like to haves". You can't judge the intent by the outcome.

McCain is the opposite his intent from the outset is often to conform to the liberal view of an issue.

Mike, I'm sorry but you aren't convincing me counselor. You can't defend his record so you have to distort the record of others.

John McCain will not carry the flag of conservatism, he only carries the flag of John McCain.

And the more people try to convince me that I should vote for a man whose policies I despise the more I'm convinced that I'm right.

Dude, I'm not trying to convince you on McCain. Your mind is made up. I'm not even talking about McCain. I'm talking about Reagan.

I'm trying to show you that it wrong for anyone to say that Reagan was a parochial and dogmatic.

He wasn't. Two good articles for you to read from Jeff Bell reflect this.

http://stonezone.com/jeffbell2.php

http://stonezone.com/jeffbell1.php

Mike,

The problem here is that you aren't really reading what I'm writing. I never said that Reagan was parochial or dogmatic. In fact I explicitly rejected the idea that in order to be an ideologue that you have to be parochial and dogmatic. But Reagan WAS guided by an ideology. It's an ideology that we followers of Reagan subscribe to. That's why I joined the Republican party in 1988 when I turned 18. To see the abandonment of those guiding principles by a liar like McCain pisses me off. He gets no reward from me for doing it.

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