Liberals, what conservative politicians and or pundits do you admire. And conservatives what liberal politicians and or pundits do you admire?
And why?
I have always thought that given a chance, George Will could change my position on a few issues.
He is one I used to respect.
Dick Lugar. I don’t regret at all that the DSCC decided not to challenge him in 2006.
I respect Bob Dole and John McCain.
They are part of that dwindling conservative contingent that doesn’t embrace creationism.
I also admire them because they both have a commendable military record.
Not to revive the “Chickenhawk” topic again, but I do not respect extremely conservative types (George Will, Rush Limbaugh, and many others) who talk tough but spent not one day in the military.
Except McCain embraced the fundamental right again in 2008, and rarely votes on his own anymore.
Barry Goldwater. Was more of a libertarian than the current breed of authoritarians, and I have read some of his writings. He was also deeply disgusted by the protofascist bend of today’s GOP.
To be fair, Bob Dole helped lead the charge against health care reform in 1993 not because he was afraid reform was a bad idea that would hurt the American people, but because he was afraid it was a good idea that would help the American people, and as a result the conservative party and conservative ideology would suffer politically if it passed.
My brother’s FIL is a doctor and a hard-core Catholic, and a very nice Republican. We have had some very good political and religious discussions and I’ve never once found him to be nutty.
Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. Pro-science, fiscally conservative, takes responsibility for and is forthright about mistakes (big story in the state this morning was that he admitted an attempted overhaul of the state welfare system was a mistake), willing to institute needed changes that are unpopular (finally got Indiana to start doing daylight savings time, for instance, something that still draws ire from older, conservative voters), puts a greater emphasis on education. Indiana happily reelected him the same night they went for Obama, which confused some pundits outside of the state.
I certainly don’t agree with most of his positions (I’m pretty far left), but Ron Paul’s recent appearance on the Daily Show made me respect the man a lot.
He has strong opinions about the proper role and size of government. Nearly all of which I disagree with. But he never stoops to appealing to the lunatics or the talk-show/blog loudmouths. I believe he earnestly believes in his position and is willing to engage anyone in a thoughtful debate. I respect that a lot.
I had a lot of respect for John McCain. I lost a lot of it when he picked Palin. I’ve come to get a fair amount of respect back for the man, starting with his concession speech. I would have spit on his campaign slogan, “Country First” during the campaign itself (largely because of Palin). But for the most part since then, he’s acted in a way consistent with that. So I’m regaining a good deal of respect for the man.
David Brooks and David Frum are both pretty reasonable.
George Will has wrote about some pretty stupid things recently that made him lose my respect.
I have mixed feeling on McCain because of how quickly he was willing to sell out on his beliefs during the 2008 election. But I do respect him for his Campaign Finance Reform Act. Even though it’s not perfect, it’s a good shot at campaign finance reform.
Does Bloomberg count? I think he has done an excellent job as NYC’s mayor.
William Bennett, former Drug Czar under Ronald Reagan. I don’t agree with the law-enforcement approach to eliminating social drug problems, and there may be little if anything, on a personal behavioral morals issue on which I would agree with him. But he commands my respect as someone who can articulate his positions well. I’ve generally found that to be true whenever he appears on some program defending a conservative position. And that’s a good thing. You can’t advocate your own position meaningfully if you don’t know and can’t respond to the counterpoints.
Tom Corbett, the Attourney General of Pennsylvania, who plans on running for governor in 2010. Mostly because I know the Corbett family personally. They used to go to our church, I went to school with Tom Jr. and Katie, and his wife was my Girl Scout troop leader. (Katie was kind of bossy, but not in a BAD way, if that makes sense. She was still pretty nice.) During the Bush campaign in 1988, he came to visit one of our meetings and talked to our troop about politics and stuff.
WOULD have been – he’s dead now.
But I definitely agree with you. He was absolutely horrified with the rise of the religious right, and his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (?) was more about the private practices of businesses, rather than racism. He had voted in favor of previous civil rights laws, and aided in integrating the army.
He was also highly pro-choice. His wife, Peggy Goldwater, was a founder of the Arizona chapter of Planned Parenthood (PP even has an award named after her!). And in the 1950s they aided their daughter in obtaining an abortion.
He was also pro-gay rights (he supported gays in the military, saying: “You don’t have to BE straight, you just have to SHOOT straight.”)
And ANYONE who supports kicking Jerry Falwell’s ass is cool in my book!*
*When Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, Falwell stated that, “Every good Christian should be concerned.” Goldwater shot back, “I think every good Christian should kick Falwell right in the ass!”
John McCain. His concession speech reminded me of why I liked him in the first place. He’s the sort of sensible, well-spoken politician that other conservatives should be looking up to and I could see myself voting for him if he had secured the nomination in 2000.
Granted he made a huge mistake in choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, and was a little too willing to let the crazier elements of the GOP run amok. But I suspect he was never comfortable aligning himself with the batshit wing of the party. A lot of what I read after the election indicates that when the party leadership wanted to go much uglier in attacking Obama, he prevented them from doing so.
GameHat
You might reconsider your opinion of Ron Paul if you do an exact search on Google for Ron Paul and creationism.
Here’s the first link I found
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2571
and there are many more.
It seems that sometimes he thinks it’s necessary to appeal to the lunatics.
Except that Brooks thinks that bipartisanship is always awesome and will produce the best result, and that Democrats are constantly headed for disaster.
Plus David Frum, from what I can tell, only started standing up against the lunatics and protofascists in the GOP when he realized letting them run the party was a losing political strategy. He didn’t criticize the GOP during the Bush years.
On another note, Ross Douthat is not too bad as a conservative writer.
I’ve always liked Joe Lieberman. I don’t agree with him on much, but he strikes me as a nice person.
IIRC, didn’t the GOP pressure him to choose Palin – I don’t think she was his first choice? (He never struck me as being part of the religious right)
Other than that, I do like McCain.
I also liked Gerald Ford, and President Eisenhower. Ike was in charge when the civil rights movement begann – he was the one who ordered federal troops to Little Rock, AK, after the governor tried to defy a desegregation order, for example. (They were to escort the nine students to school on their first day) He federalized the National Guard of Arkansas in order to take control of it from Governor Faubus.