I know it's Newsweek, but...

I found this article interesting, and a bit reassuring.

Some excerpts, and then I, of course, welcome comments:

"It was a grand evening. On Thursday, Dec. 5, 1985, at the Plaza Hotel, William F. Buckley Jr. rose to toast the president of the United States on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of National Review. Charlton Heston was the master of ceremonies; the audience included William J. Casey, Nancy Kissinger, Roy Cohn and Tom Selleck. Thirteen months earlier Ronald Reagan had been re-elected, carrying every state in the Union except Walter Mondale's Minnesota. "As an individual you incarnate American ideals at many levels," Buckley said to the president. "As the final responsible authority, in any hour of great challenge, we depend on you." Buckley was 19 when America dropped the bomb at Hiroshima, he said, and he had just turned 60. "During the interval I have lived a free man in a free and sovereign country, and this only because we have husbanded a nuclear deterrent, and made clear our disposition to use it if necessary. I pray that my son, when he is 60, and your son, when he is 60 … will live in a world from which the great ugliness that has scarred our century has passed. Enjoying their freedoms, they will be grateful that, at the threatened nightfall, the blood of their fathers ran strong."

"So are we a centrist country, or a right-of-center one? I think the latter, because the mean to which most Americans revert tends to be more conservative than liberal. According to the NEWSWEEK Poll, nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals (40 percent to 20 percent), and Republicans have dominated presidential politics—in many ways the most personal, visceral vote we cast—for 40 years. Since 1968, Democrats have won only three of 10 general elections (1976, 1992 and 1996), and in those years they were led by Southern Baptist nominees who ran away from the liberal label."

"Like the apostles of Jesus who expected their Messiah to return in triumph before they themselves died, many liberals are almost certain to be disappointed in a President Obama. "I think right now people are in a pragmatic mood, not an ideological mood," says David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist. Perhaps, but on the off chance that ideology is on the mind of a voter or two, Axelrod's candidate has taken care to avoid the L word. Obama opposes gay marriage; talks about tax cuts, God and veterans' benefits; and is spending money to try to remain competitive in traditionally Republican states such as Virginia, North Carolina and even West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton trounced him earlier this year. "I think he will govern a little right of center," says Harold Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. "He is not an ideologue."

"Contrary to caricature, to be conservative is not necessarily to be racist, or retrograde, or close-minded. It is, rather, to be driven by a fundamental human impulse to preserve what one has and loves. Liberals and moderates share this impulse, of course; and many conservatives, like many liberals and moderates, are generous, future-oriented and interested in reform. The point is that history suggests America is more likely to tack toward the familiar on big questions of politics and culture than it is to enthusiastically embrace radical change."

There is more, and in my opinion, worth the read. The author is undoubtedly an obama supporter, but a lot of this article makes sense.

I didn't want to take up space on the threads, so I posted it here. I hope my fellow NB'ers will read it and post their thoughts, (yes, even you trolls).