From Capitol Hill Blue

Bush Leagues
Nancy Reagan to Bush: 'We Don't Support Your Re-Election'
By TERESA HAMPTON & WILLIAM D. McTAVISH
Capitol Hill Blue Staff
Jul 30, 2004, 08:12

The widow of former President, and Republican icon, Ronald Reagan has told the GOP she wants nothing to do with their upcoming national convention or the re-election campaign of President George W. Bush.

Nancy Reagan turned down numerous invitations to appear at the Republican National Convention and has warned the Bush campaign she will not tolerate any use of her or her late husbands words or images in the President’s re-election effort.

“Mrs. Reagan does not support President Bush’s re-election and neither to most members of the President’s family,” says a spokesman for the former First Lady.

Nancy Reagan
Reagan’s son, Ron, spoke at the just-concluded Democratic National Convention and writes in next month’s Esquire magazine that “George W. Bush and his administration have taken normal mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. They traffic in big lies.”

Ron Reagan is joined by his sister Patty in opposing Bush’s re-election effort. Only brother Michael Reagan, a conservative talk show host, supports the President and claims Ron is manipulating his mother.

Unlike, Michael is not Reagan’s biological son. He was adopted by Reagan during the actor’s first marriage to actress Jane Wyman and often complains that his stepmother, Nancy, likes Ron best.

“He is her favorite,” Michael Reagan told Fox News. “Ron can do no wrong. I mean, basically that's it, Ron can do no wrong.”

Ron, however, claims George W. Bush has destroyed the Republican Party his father helped build.

“My father, acting roles excepted, never pretended to be anyone but himself,” Reagan writes in Esquire. “His Republican Party, furthermore, seems a far cry from the current model, with its cringing obeisance to the religious right.”

The Reagans’ split with Bush and the party centers around stem cell research which many believe can help find a cure for Alzheimer’s, the disease that crippled President Reagan in his final years. Bush and the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party oppose use of new stem cells. The Reagans, with the exception of Michael, support such use.

There’s more to the feud than that, however. Nancy Reagan has told close followers she believes Bush and the current Republican leadership have divided America with their extreme views. She has told Republican leaders she wants nothing to do with the party or Bush.

During the week of Reagan’s funeral, the former First Lady “went ballistic” when she learned the Bush campaign was test marketing new ads that used Reagan’s photos and speeches in an effort to show he supported Bush and his re-election. She personally called Republican Party Chief Ed Gillespie to demand the ads be destroyed.

Republican strategists admit the ads were produced but never ran. They were pulled after scoring poorly with focus groups where viewers found them in “poor taste.”

“Mrs. Reagan doesn’t care why the ads were pulled. She just wanted to make sure they never went on the air,” says a spokesman for the First Lady. “She does care about whether or not the memory of President Reagan is used for political purposes.”

Can you give us the site.

And who or what are the Capital Hill Blues?

sometimes they seem sort of like the drudge of the left. www.capitolhillblue.com

i guess we can see if the story turns up elsewhere

Drudge of the left -- now that's funny! hee hee

Marybeth,

Thanks for posting that news article. It was enlightening and I certainly don't feel Bush should be wrapping himself in a flag with the Reagan legacy.

__________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." GWB 8/5/04

i guess that's the name of the game in politics. one day, they love ya, then the next, they wont support your re-election campaign. i hope this sends a message to rePIGlican voters that their beloved reagans (at least most) dont support the singing bush.

Look at all these sites:

http://cbs2.com/politics/politicsnat...210162916.html

http://politicalwire.com/archives/20...onvention.html

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...litics/2702100

I think they would have liked her to counter Ron..

Why? YOU guys didn't like Reagan anyway.....

Not that you will understand, but...

You see, the Neocons have swung so far to the right that the reasonable people in the Republican party are leaving.

Nancy's decision illustrates this fact.

What is nice is this: The Democratic Party, the party of inclusion, will give these people a voice, something they do not have in the Republican party. the have a place.

__________________
"What does a former president's son know about the Iraq war anyway?"
-- GW Bush when asked about Ron Reagan's negative comments, 6/25/2004.
www.BushZombie.com

LiberHates claim Republicans are desperate and nervous...

...then go and post articles that offer ONLY SPECULATION...(notice....no quotes from Nancy herself)...as to why a frail woman, who just lost her life's love, who in her 80's might or might not attend the RNC convention....

Lordy!

That's amazing. Just when I thought liberals couldn't possibly sink any lower...

And liberals say that Republicans stoop low.

I'd like to say for the record: this post IS NOT about whether or not Mrs. Reagan will or will not attend the RNC convention, but rather liberal attempts to politicize whether she will or not.

Amazingly ugly stuff...and yet we hear from liberals who say that they are not the "haters" it is the GOP...that they are "sling filth around like the GOP'....

This thread effectively destroys that argument quite well.

BTW, what will you libs say if she DOES attend the RNC convention and speaks? I shudder at the vitriol and hate she would endure from liberals (who already hate her anyway).