|  Lyn
Nofziger wasn't a libertarian. But he thought he might be one. And he
wished he was one. But he wasn't. Got that?
Nofziger, a longtime Republican activist best known for his tenure as
President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, announced on June 22, 2004
that he had begun to question his traditional conservative identity.
"More and more I'm beginning to think that I'm not a conservative
at all, but a libertarian," he wrote on his Web site, www.LynNofziger.com.
As a conservative, Nofziger said he believed in "small government,
low taxes, individual responsibility, as well as being let alone."
However, a Supreme Court decision that upheld a Nevada law making it
a crime for citizens to refuse to give their name to the police was
"one more little step toward turning this nation into a police
state," he wrote. Even worse, Nofziger noted, the five Supreme
Court members who upheld the law were the "five most conservative
members." As a result, he said, "I think it's the conservatives
who are leaving me and not the other way around."
It wasn't the first time Nofziger had questioned conservative orthodoxy.
In 2002, he urged the Bush Administration to support a medical marijuana
bill after his daughter had to take the drug to treat the side effects
of cancer-fighting chemotherapy. "I've become an advocate of medical
marijuana," he said at the time. "It is truly compassionate.
I sincerely hope the administration can get behind this bill."
And in 2004, Nofziger criticized President George W. Bush for being
"a big spender who has refused to veto any spending bills and who
seemingly is unconcerned about the budget deficit or the size and growth
of the national debt."
In part because of those policy differences, Nofziger began to describe
himself as a "right-wing independent" who was a registered
Republican "because there isn't any place else to go." However,
on his Web site, he wrote: "Sometimes I wish I were a Democrat
because Democrats seem to have more fun. At other times I wish I were
a Libertarian because Republicans are too much like Democrats."
(October 19, 2004)
Nofziger's disenchantment with modern conservatism came after almost
four decades as a conservative stalwart. He spent 16 years as a reporter
and editor, and then joined Ronald Reagan's California gubernatorial
campaign in 1996. Subsequently, he served as Governor Reagan's director
of communications. After several stints in Richard Nixon's White House,
he signed on to the Reagan for President campaign in 1979. After Reagan's
victory, Nofziger served as press secretary and then as assistant to
the president for political affairs. Later, he ran Nofziger Communications,
a political consulting firm. He published his autobiography (Nofziger,
Regnery Gateway) in 1992, and was the author of a series of Western
novels, Tackett (1993), Tackett and the Saloon Keeper
(1994), Tackett and the Teacher (1994), Tackett and the
Indian (1997), and The Tacketts (1999).
Nofziger
died of cancer on March 27, 2006.
--
Bill Winter |
