Dubya Knows More Than His “Base”

Remember the “peace dividend”? That was a rhetorical device used by Democrats to attack President G.H.W. Bush for the sin of winning the Cold War. Of course, it was President Reagan who won the Cold War, but even Democrats understood they could not whack him for that, so they went after Reagan’s Veep when he became President. The argument sounded sort of reasonable – we spent all this money fighting the Cold War, so now that it’s over we should be have a lot of extra money lying around, right? Of course, the actual facts were a bit more complex and the world not nearly the Disneyland that the Democrats pretended, but that was the beauty of it for the Left – the President could not point to the evils still rampant in the world without the Left calling him a fascist for it; after all thy started painting the whole Bush family as Nazis by demonizing the patriarch, Prescott. So the Left painted GHW Bush into a corner, and wouldn’t you know - the “base” of the Republican Party, those self-appointed guardians of “True Conservatism” and the self-righteous inquisitors of political purity, they decided to let Bush I fall by the wayside, because in their mind even Reagan was not quite good enough. Some of them followed the manic stylings of Ross Perot, some sat on their butts and pouted out the 1992 Election, and some just derailed any semblance of party unity and common purpose. For this collective discordance they helped put Bill “Bubba” Clinton into office.

Well, those yahoos are still around. And because they refuse to acknowledge their hand in delivering America into the hands of the Clintons for eight years – did I mention they were self-righteous and prone to denial? – they are still going on in the same arrogant ‘do as I command’ way that we used to observe from the anchor desk at CBS for so long.

Anyway, the “Base” of the GOP, or as I call them the “Rabies Wing of the GOP”, has been on a tear lately, deriding President George W. Bush for all kinds of things. Things he did that they didn’t like, things they demanded he do that he didn’t do, and twisting his words to make him seem to say things they could attack him for, even when all evidence was to the contrary. I did mention some of these loons are the guys who defected to Perot in ’92, after all, so stability and serious introspection are not requirements for these guys, all right? To get to the point, one area of rhetorical hemorrhoids for these guys is the issue of Illegals in the United States, which some have taken to mean we should regard Hispanics with suspicion and disapproval. More than one zealot has opined that the GOP should write-off Hispanics, in order to keep the White vote. They would hasten to deny that they are being racist, suggesting instead that they are somehow merely being “realistic” in claiming that considering the opinion of Hispanics in this issue is somehow a bad thing, politically.

Well, as usual the President knows more than the people sniping at him. And even the very polls that people use to claim he is losing ground, make some interesting points. In this case I am once again referring to Survey USA’s helpful poll for President Bush’s Job Approval in all 50 states.

What does this say about Bush and Hispanics? Survey USA broke down its respondents into four basic races – White, Black, Hispanic, and “Other”, which would include Asians, Arabs, Deaniacs, and other minorities which did not fit into the presumed groups. And in that information, some fascinating facts showed up:

[] In sixteen states, Hispanic Job Approval for President Bush was 50% or greater;

[] In seven states, Hispanic Job Approval for President Bush was above 60% (two states showed Hispanic approval of Bush above 70%)

[] In fifteen states, Hispanic Job Approval for President Bush was higher than from any other race.

As usual, President Bush knows more than the people pretending to be the “base”.