CNN notes that Buckley leaves National Review after Obama endorsement, that's Christopher Buckley, the son of conservative icon William F. Buckley. He had been writing for the National Review, a paper founded by his father, and had recently endorsed Barack Obama for President. The CNN article also notes other prominent Conservatives who have endorsed Obama.
This is indicitave of something I've been suspecting. The Republicans have managed to turn off Conservatives by acting against Conservative ideals. I'll note in passing that in the late 90's my father, a life-long Conservative & Republican, was overwhelmingly outraged by the destructive politics being practiced by the Republicans. And ever since he had nothing good to say about world events such as the lies and deceit practiced by the Bush Administration.
In the case of Buckley... he wrote a speech for McCain, has known him for years and years, has written favorably about him for a long time. But he says the election process has changed McCain into inauthenticity, an irascible and snarly temperament, changing and incoherent positions, unrealistic promises, goofy tactics, and worst of all is the nomination of Gov. Palin.
Buckley describes himself as "a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets" and not one to adopt Obama's policy proposals. But one to see Obama as a thoughtful, first-class intelligence, first-class temperament, etc, and trusts that Obama will do the right thing and not the stereotypical actions Conservatives present as the potential horror story of what will happen of those hated liberals get into office. Of course Obama is just the President and he has to dance with Congress, and it appears likely the Democratic party will have a full majority in Congress. It's unknown whether Obama as President will be able to rein in a Democratic Congress if the other Democrats decide to veer into actions the Conservatives claim as the horror story.
In a followup column Buckley says "My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman", that he was close friends with Liberals, and that he "held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much".
This speaks to an observation I've had for quite awhile.. The behavior of current Conservatives appears to be more like a sports team or an army in battle than it does about promoting a set of beliefs or ideals. The behavior I mean is the hateful spite associated with the word 'Liberal' and the outright shunning of anything associated with Liberalness. If Buckley is right he was shunned out of his job with the National Review in this way, that just because he dared to betray his camp then his camp immediately repudiates and shuns him. This isn't about ideology, this is about pitting one group of combatants against another group of combatants.
Or, as Buckley put it,
While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.
So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.
Here's some more people who are taking the same sort of stand:-
I'm a lifelong conservative activist and I'm backing Barack Obama BY LARRY HUNTER -- "I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America. This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama. "
Growing parade of conservatives backing Obama ... from an article published July 7, indicates this has been going on for awhile. 'Among the reformed righties now hoping for an Obama victory are free-market economist David Friedman, former Reagan aide Douglas Kmiec, Contract With America co-author Larry Hunter and Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the former president....Bush's "view of the legitimate power of the executive branch, including the authority to deliberately violate federal law, I find frightening," Friedman..."The untold story of the Bush administration is the deliberate annihilation of the Reaganite, small-government wing of the Republican Party," said Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute...'
Tory MPs abandon Republicans to back Barack Obama Yup, MP means Member of Parliament, as in the British Parliament. "Almost a third of Tory MPs willing to publicly express their preferences in the US presidential election are prepared to jettison their party's historic links with the Republicans and back Democrat Senator Barack Obama. "
A Conservative for Obama "...today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don't work. The Bush tax cuts--a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war--led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his "conservative"- credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask....This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_Republican
Republicans and former Republicans endorsing Obama
Fmr. Congressman Jim Leach (R-IA).
Fmr. Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI).
Former publisher of National Review, Wick Allison
Jack Antaramian, Florida real estate developer and Bush fundraiser
Fmr. Mayor of Los Angeles Richard Riordan (R-CA).
Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower and president of the Eisenhower Institute. and Julie Nixon and Susan Eisenhower back Barack Obama and Ike's Granddaughter Calls Obama 'Future of America'
Lilibet Hagel, wife of Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Rita E. Hauser, Former White House intelligence advisor for George W. Bush
Tricia Mosley, former staffer to Senator Strom Thurmond
Paul O'Neill, United States Secretary of the Treasury from 2001-02 under George W. Bush
Frank Schaeffer, pro-life advocate and the son of evangelist Francis Schaeffer.
Fmr. Governor and Senator Lowell Weicker (R-CT).
Fmr. Governor Linwood Holton (R-VA), father-in-law of current Governor Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Support for Obama from scholars, authors and bloggers affiliated with conservatism
Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations at Boston University.
Charles Barkley, Author, former NBA basketball player.
Christopher Buckley, author, son of legendary conservative William F. Buckley, Jr.
Francis Fukuyama, Author, major figure in the rise of neoconservatism.
Christopher Hitchens, Author, journalist, literary critic.
Dorothy King, Archeologist and conservative blogger. and Mr. Right?
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