Yes, it’s happening, and not just among weirdo conservatives that no one’s heard of. Jeffrey Hart is a Burkean conservative was a speechwriter for Reagan and former writer for NRO (HT to De Regno Christi)
Jeffrey Hart sat at his kitchen table in slippers, reading Barack Obama’s words aloud. The retired Dartmouth professor, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, wore on his shirt an artifact of the 1900 Republican presidential ticket — a McKinley-Roosevelt pin.
“I am not opposed to all wars,” Hart intoned, quoting a 2002 speech before the Illinois State Legislature in which Obama, then a state senator, had warned of the perils of invading Iraq. “I’m opposed to dumb wars.” Looking up from the page, Hart nodded his approval.
“Very Burkean,” he said, referring to the 18th century Irish political writer Edmund Burke, hailed by many as the founder of modern conservatism. “Prudential. A sense of history, and what we’re up against there.”
I bet he freaked when McCain invoked Burke in his CPAC speech. I know I did. It seems to me that a growing number of conservatives are coming to the conclusion that Iraq was simply not a conservative war. The neocons duped us. (And I include myself in that “us.”)
Thoughts?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Gaines // Feb 12, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I think a Democratic victory in November (and Obama definitely has the best chance) might go a long way in forcing the GOP to re-evaluate its current trajectory. But I don’t think I would actually vote for Obama in order to help speed things along. I stopped voting for the lesser of two evils back in 2004.
2 Travis Prinzi // Feb 13, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Gaines, I hear you. It’s more likely that my vote will be a protest vote for whatever third-party candidate best fits my views. I’m not ruling out Obama entirely (I have to give it a lot more thought), but I agree that the time has come to stop voting for the lesser of two evils.
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