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No, it was more of a buzzword than anything else, maybe a rhetorical stance. Policy-wise it was completely meaningless. The term had been knocking around since Republicans took control of the House in the mid-90s, but nobody used it as a self-descriptor until Bush. Republicans had a reputation for insinuating (or more) that poor people were lazy moochers who didn't want to work, and other Republicans, mostly in competitive areas, didn't do this as much and talked about how conservative policies would enable self-determination or whatever. Then their opponent would run attack ads saying things like "Compassionate Conservative?" and pointing out how they were in favor of all the same policies as the rest of the conservatives, followed by grainy video of Rick Santorum saying that the retirement age should be raised to 90. After Bush started calling himself that in the 2000 elections there were a lot of op-eds about what it was supposed to mean, but the entire idea died a swift death after 9/11 shifted the nation's focus to security and foreign policy issues.
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