I think Oneman and I are going to have to turn this into a running gag on Ryan. I’m not singling him out as the only one who thinks this, but we seem to comment a lot on this issue back and forth. We both think the other is wrong, but not in a way that makes communicating difficult. Hopefully that will continue.
But today, Ramesh Ponnuru and I come down on the side that Jack Ryan is indeed, quite conservative.
What distinguishes the Republicans’ 2004 candidates is not only how many conservatives they are fielding. It is remarkable how many smart, idealistic, policy-oriented conservatives have a serious chance of winning this year. Here are seven such candidates: Herman Cain, Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Jack Ryan, Bob Schaeffer, Pat Toomey, and David Vitter. (They are running, respectively, in Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Illinois, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana.) These candidates don’t just have good voting records. They have fought for conservative advances on Social Security reform, health savings accounts, spending cuts, and free trade.
Admittedly, I’m pretty much a staunch free trader, but the voters aren’t as much as I am. Later Ramesh compares this crop to the 2002 crop:
The 2002 Senate elections went very well for conservatives, but the potential in 2004 is in this respect greater. Norm Coleman, Elizabeth Dole, Jim Talent, and John Thune were all pretty conservative candidates. But they were, in general, not as conservative as the 2004 candidates mentioned above: Coleman was against drilling in Alaska, and Thune voted for campaign-finance reform.
And he throws Salvi in there too as comparable. All I can say is that if the GOP wants to become that conservative—–PRETTY PLEASE! And damn, I love the median voter theorem.
I would still argue (and disagree) that he is a small c conservative not a big C conservative and I guess the difference for me is on the social issues.
If it was Al Salvi running this time the big issue would be gay marrage and not an issue that really mattered to most people. Look at the discusions on the leader. The people who were strongly against Jack were that way because he was not conservative enough.
As the Sun Times pointed out about Jack during their endorsement of him, he has personally moved to help people (working at a refugee camp) or when he was a Teacher. That makes him a small c the big C guys just gripe.
The margin of victory for the 2002 Conservative Senate candidates were razor thin (Dole, an exception). So, what if the top shelf class of ’04 is met at the polls by an angry Dem base, revolting Independents and newly registered group, all aiming to bash Bush?
Toomey is already a goner against Specter in Penn.
Now, have you and oneman debated whether Bush will (or should) come to Ill. stumping for Ryan?
Where is Jack Ryan’s voting record? Ryan has never held political office.
Where is Jack Ryan’s voting record? Ryan has never held political office.
Yep no voting record. That can be an Advantage. That is why Governors have more luck winning the White House than Senators.
Heck most of the folks running for US Senate on the Democratic side did not have ‘voting records’
Obama – Yes
Danny! — Nope
Hull — Nope
Skinner — Nope
Chico — Nope
I often hope that the national GOP could become like the CA GOP which rejects moderate candidates who could actually win over and over and over again in favor of unelectable colourless ultraconservatives who would be right at home in Utah. In the recent senate primary they passed over a latina former treasury secretary who would have cleaned Boxer’s clock because she wasn’t conservative enough. Maybe this is a sign that my hopes are becoming reality…
I thought Conservatives were big on family values?
When I look at the candidates in this race, it’s pretty clear to me which one values family and which one is some kind of pervert.
When I look at the candidates in this race, it’s pretty clear to me which one values family and which one is some kind of pervert.
What…. based off of some pdf you saw of a fax that someone sent that referenced a document that someone saw.
If you could honestly say that you would feel the same way about Obama if the same thing happened to him..
Until then, Please.
And would you feel the same about George Bush if what happened to Bill Clinton?
Puhleaze.
If he was getting busy with an intern and caught telling a lie about it under oath. Yes I would, honestly in a heartbeat. The issue would be the ability for someone to blackmail him more than anything else. Heck I really didn’t have a huge problem with Clinton until that point.
Also at this point the Ryan stuff is rumor and nothing more. It’s not like he wrote a book and talked about doing blow….
OneMan
oneman, we don’t need the contents of the divorce files to take away the family values card from Jack! some of the following may not be particularly just or relevant, but it all helps politically and subtextually.
you have the fact of the divorce and its obviously contentious nature. we have a happily married candidate (catch Michelle’s “because I love you” election night?) (i believe his one and only marriage). you have a candidate with an only child living across the country; ours has two lovely daughters he can still tuck in or have breakfast with routinely. you have a glitzy hollywood ex-wife trading on her looks and producing soft-core porn; we have an articulate and accomplished (and more lovely!) Harvard law grad.
And we have family-friendly policies in the areas of health insurance, early childhood education, the minimum wage, and, in Senator Obama’s (get used to it) case, a record of opposition to putting our family members at risk needlessly in Iraq.
hmm, jack ryan forced his wife into sex clubs. He has the audacity to claim the “moral high road” in the campaign. Last Night, he said Edgar and Topinka supported him after they read the documents. Today, both said they never asw the documents, and Edgar said Ryan never told him about forcing his wife into sex clubs.
This is one classy guy, I tell you