Reclaim Conservatism

A look back at the election:

All of the landslide majority did not vote against the conservative philosophy; they voted against a false image our Liberal opponents successfully mounted. Indeed it was a double false image. Not only did they portray us as advancing a kind of radical departure from the status quo, but they took for themselves a costume of comfortable conservatism. Read again their campaign fiction and you will find their normal flamboyant Liberalism hidden under the protective coloration[.]

Not the election just past. The passage above was written by Ronald Reagan following the defeat of Barry Goldwater. It is still an entirely accurate assessment of how the left campaigns — lie about conservative positions (think “Republicans are going to steal grandma’s Social Security”) as they do their best to hide their own liberal agenda.

Later in the piece Reagan says, “Our job beginning now is not so much to sell conservatism as to prove that our conservatism is in truth what a lot of people thought they were voting for when they fell for the cornpone come-on.” In the most recent campaign it was not a cornpone come-on, but the mantra of hope and change. Still, our job remains the same — commit ourselves to core conservative values and rededicate ourselves to communicating those values.

(h/t: Babalu Blog for the Reagan article.)