{"id":721,"date":"2004-03-04T03:46:24","date_gmt":"2004-03-04T08:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/03\/standing_on_the_conservative_b\/"},"modified":"2004-03-04T03:46:24","modified_gmt":"2004-03-04T08:46:24","slug":"standing_on_the_conservative_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/03\/standing_on_the_conservative_b\/","title":{"rendered":"Standing on the Conservative Base"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes we need reminded of this, but there are some people to the right of President Bush who don&#8217;t have their way.  For instance, some Texans <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cq.com\/corp\/show.do?page=crawford\/crawford_current\">are still fussing<\/a> over then-Governor Bush&#8217;s 2000 campaign decision to remove Confederate items from the Texas Supreme Court:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Still angry that Bush in 2000 ordered the removal of Civil War memorabilia from the Texas Supreme Court when he was governor \ufffd but also the presumed GOP presidential nominee \ufffd local members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are suing the state. And, in a recent flurry of telephone calls and meetings, they are urging their counterparts throughout the South to use the presidential campaign to blame Bush for abandoning Dixie.<br \/>\n. . .<br \/>\nThe plaques outside the Supreme Court chamber included images of the rebel flag and quoted Robert E. Lee praising the bravery of Texas soldiers. On June 9, 2000, Bush aides quietly replaced the plaques with a new sign containing no Confederate symbols and stating: &#8220;The courts of Texas are entrusted with providing equal justice under the law regardless of race, creed or color.&#8221;<br \/>\nAt the time, Bush was preparing the battlefield for the 2000 general election and seeking to counter his refusal earlier that year to take sides in a similar flap during the South Carolina Republican primary.<br \/>\nIn that campaign, Bush refused to join his presidential rival Sen. John McCain in condemning the flying of the Confederate flag above the State Capitol in Columbia. Appealing to Confederate sympathizers helped Bush win South Carolina, overcoming McCain&#8217;s earlier victory in the New Hampshire primary and serving as a turning point in the 2000 GOP nomination race.<br \/>\nAfter securing the nomination, Bush needed to reach beyond the conservative voters in Republican primaries. Removing the Confederate plaques in a Texas public building did the trick. The NAACP and other anti-Confederate groups around the country praised the move.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Funny that it took the governor five years to become troubled by the Confederate memorabilia.  Anyway, the episode reveals Bush political expediency at work.<br \/>\nEric Alterman was on C-SPAN the other morning and observed that Bush&#8217;s conservative agenda was subject to being bent by the political winds with two exceptions: that which benefits (1) wealthy campaign donors and (2) the religious right.  I think he&#8217;s correct; it&#8217;s hard to think of any examples where he&#8217;s gone against either of those groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/03\/standing_on_the_conservative_b\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Standing on the Conservative Base\"><p>Sometimes we need reminded of this, but there are some people to the right of President Bush who don&#8217;t have their way. For instance, some Texans are still fussing over then-Governor Bush&#8217;s 2000 campaign decision to remove Confederate items from the Texas Supreme Court: Still angry that Bush in 2000 ordered the removal of Civil [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}