Here's the problem. We conservatives have put faith in the Republican party for so long that, no matter how bad the alternative is, we expect results. Well we have 7 of 9 Supreme Court Justices, a House, a Senate, and the presidency for 24 of the last 36 years.

A little gridlock is not a bad thing. Would the Republican Congress have grown the government under President Kerry the way it did under President Bush ? Probably not.

Still, despite my many problems with the current administration and the party, I am still a Republican. As you say the alternative is worse. I have no problem throwing a vote away when the race is not close. Now that I am in Kansas, I suspect I will be throwing a lot of votes away. It seems we have a more conservative Democrat running against a Republican congressman and I will probably be part of the 20% that votes for this pro-life Dem.

I think you can bring up your Santorum piece from a few days ago. Social conservatives and religious conservatives and traditional conservatives will take a lot of crap on a lot of issues. But on one issue, there can be no retreat, there can be no fall back, there can be no compromise, there can be no giving up. Life is either sacred or it is not. Abortion is either right or it is wrong. Santorum has ended up in hot water on this issue, despite his fine record, by his support of Specter. It seems that we on the right are firing away at Harriet Meire for the simple reason that he put a blank slate crony to one of the most pivotal positions in American politics. If she is as bad on the life issue as many of us fear, the issue is lost for a long time. I have no intention of voting for a supporter of abortion on the national level, be it Rice, Rudy or whoever. I suspect if an anti-life nominee were to emerge from the GOP race in 2008, a lot of social conservatives would probably feel the same way. A lot of the anger on the right at Bush has to deal with this issue. While the Party may be doma, the Hammer is going down and the Scythe of heartland conservatives is blunted since we are upset about what does appear to be, yes, a betrayel on the life issue from a "compassionate conservative."

Excellent

>>>Convince people that a smaller government,
Ineffective government (Katrina)

>>>lower taxes,
Bankrupt the country.. cut taxes and start a war seems like the dumbest policy I've seen yet.

>>>conservative judges,
Rollback rights and liberties

>>>and a strong, decisive foreign policy are important for the good of our country.
Did you actually mean divisive foreign policy?

>>> Convince people that a smaller government,
Ineffective government, large expensive military

>>> lower taxes,
Bankrupt the social system, start a war, cause high inflation

>>> conservative judges,
Rollback rights, liberties, and environmental protections

>>> and a strong, decisive foreign policy are important for the good of our country.
You meant divisive foreign policy right? Nothing like squandering your allies in a time of need.

You're absolutely right about Bush having to lead from the center, and about remembering the {shudder} alternatives. Through his first term--particularly the first two years--I was willing to swallow news of the steady stream of pork coming out of Congress in the name of weak political position. Though I hail from a slightly less conservative position on social issues, I have always been willing to compromise with those of you who are more so in the hope of getting the smaller government and freer economy I want to see.

But after an aborted run at Social Security privatization, a proven inability for Bush to use his own veto (the infamous highway bill) and now the Miers nomination (I'm sure she's a lovely and talented woman, but c'mon...), enough is enough. He's placated the center with spending and placated his social conservative base with his steadfast committment to life. I expect him to sacrifice his principles only from the point where his own ability to convince the public and/or Congress leaves off. He was doing a splendid job on the tax cuts and the talk of an "ownership society", but the non-defense spending is a whole different story.

The lack of an alternative IS the reason we complain. (I posted my own demands of the Dems to get my vote last spring, though they would need to party like it's 1959 to get it.) We've no (reasonable) place else to go, and we're asking that Bush not desert us.

Karol,

I fully expected Bush to be a right leaning moderate. However, he has a responsibility not to moderate conservatism, but to push the center to the right.

Unfortunately, he has gone out of his way betray both his base and his oath of office by pushing an unpopular leftist agenda on illegal immigrant amnesty and anti-white quotas.
California and other swing states have passed refferenda opposing such measures. Even most Hispanic CITIZENS oppose illegal immigration and affirmative discrination. Yet Bush supports this assault on America.
It is not stupidity. It is an agenda, and one which Miers seems to support.

Conservatives don't favor a smaller government.

They want to patrol your bedroom telling you who can sleep with.

They want to pick and choose who you can marry.

They don't care about states rights, for example, by overturning state laws that allow medical marijuana and assisted suicide.

They want to use the powers of the Federal Government to prevent you from reading Playboy magazine.

Small government? Yeah right. More like a theocratic police state if you ask me.

Sorry Karol - But it's a little hypocritical for you and other conservatives to complain about these things now(medicare entitlements, increased spending, etc.), when you were silent on all of these issues before the election.

I think that the Miers pick prevented conservatives from making our case to the American people. We had--in this judicial selection process--an opportunity to put Janice Rogers Brown before TV cameras to explain the precise reasons that the New Deal was unfounded in the Constitution; in other words, we had one chance to clearly explain our Constitutional vision perspective, while people were actually interested and watching, and we wasted it.

Dorian,

The new deal was legislation. To have the courts undo it would be judicial activism. That's not what you want...is it?

I feel like this post was directed at me. I've had so many people demand my party affiliation recently because they want to box me in and I just defer to "none" because I'm so sick of it. But it's kind of a cop-out, and I can't on the one hand vilify Americans who go abroad and pretend they're Canadian (giving the ROW a lovely vision of smart, cosmopolitan Canadians like all we care about is buying souveniers) and then do it myself, with the party and the public sphere. I have always maintained that you do more good participating in an organization and fighting for your issues to get priority than you do by attacking it from outside.

"The alternative isn't pretty" is an understatement, and even though I feel a little funky returning my RNC surveys with "strongly disagree" all over the place and still turning in the requested donation, that's just how it has to be done. Bowing out now is not leadership, it's cowardice.

That said, I liked many of his first-term decisions, including two of the ones you listed in paragraph 1, and have come to distrust him deeply on many others. So let the debate begin.

NDS-

It is not "activism" to repeal legislation that bastardized the Constitution and that introduced socialism into a democracy. It's "following the law."

Bush is not conservative he is Republican. If he was a conservative he wouldn't be spending his presidency bankrupting the nation.
Bush is a Republican big spender.
Could there be a worse combination than that?

Saying that Bush's big spending is somehow tolerable because the alternative would spend even more seems too simplistic an argument. Bill Clinton was a Democrat and Bush makes Clinton seem like an ultra-conservative when it comes to spending.

Besides I would rather have a moderate fiscally responsible democrat spend the money than Bush spending it on his agenda.

Can we have examples Dorian? Socialism didn't even exist as a concept when the founders wrote the Constitution, so it's hard to see how they had the foresight to ban it.

I assume you are implying that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional. FDR fought several elections on that front and won pretty decisively, so I don't think you're going to get much support from the American people there.

Yup - tell them that Harriet Miers is actually a stealth candidate to out Social Security - yup - that's definitely a way to win elections going forward.

How exactly is Janice Rogers Brown more qualified than Harriet Miers? She went to California State University for undergrad. Woo-hoo. U.C.L.A. law school. Big whoop.

If she wasn't an African-American female, would anyone honestly be mentioning her for the Supreme Court?

Nope.

Maybe it's time for a realingment. The social/religious conservatives can go shopping for new candidates while the money, limited government, and foreign policy conservatives can reach out to the big chunk of the middle of the electorate that is being alienated by the behavior and policies of the left/far-left.

">>> lower taxes,
Bankrupt the social system, start a war, cause high inflation"

I know nobody on the left looks at facts but let's do so:

The fact is the Clinton left behind these huge economic messes

1. A recession that started in the Fall of 99.
2. An Internet Bubble that burst and took 2 trillion dollars out of the economy.
3. 9/11 which stopped all economic activity for 3 months and ruined the travel industry for 18 months.

If Gore had been president he would have done the same thing that Kerry would have-nothing And today’s unemployment rate would be 14% as it is in Germany and France.

Fact: Before the tax cut, unemployment was 6.5% and going up
After the tax cut, unemployment is 5.1% and dropping.

Fact: Before the tax cut, federal tax revenues were falling
After the tax cut, federal tax revenues have increased 30% and continue to increase every month

Fact: Before and after the tax cut, inflation was and is at historic lows.
Before and after the tax cut, interest rates were and are at historic lows.

The left likes to see the unemployment rate skyrocket and are very angry the tax cut dashed those hopes.

So, to basically sum up both posts in one go, it's better to support and vote for the devil you know.

No, it's that people should accept reality and know that no candidate will ever be their perfect leader and so should vote for the one who best represents their ideals, even if it can not be a perfect match.

Ah. I was in the ballpark. Nosebleed seats, though.

DL wrote:
"Conservatives don't favor a smaller government."

It depends what you mean by "conservative".
Most conservatives believe in tradition and liberty tempered by responsibility.
We don't confuse license with freedom and libertinism with liberty.

"They want to patrol your bedroom telling you who can sleep with."

I have no desire to get anywhere near your bedroom. Most conservatives tolerate deviant so long as it is kept quiet.

"They want to pick and choose who you can marry."
No, the left wants to redefine the family into oblivion, using sexual license as a club.
One man + one woman is the norm in the west.
You are the ones trying to push your lifestyle onto the rest of us.
Most marriage perks can be given through other contracts.

"They don't care about states rights, for example, by overturning state laws that allow medical marijuana and assisted suicide."

Actually, many conservatives are split on medical marijuana.
Most conservatives don't care about mentally competent people choosing to get help with suicide, although they would probably want them to get religious or professional counseling. The problem is that "voluntary suicide" quickly becomes a perceived obligation and then evolves into government or hospital policies of involuntary euthanasia.
In Sweden like the Netherlands, "voluntary euthanasia" is not prosecuted.
In the Netherlands, 20% of euthanizations are involuntary. http://www.euthanasia.com/holland99.html

In Sweden, involuntary euthanasia is commonly rumored. However, the state hospitals routinely cover up such incidents. I know of one such case first hand, that of my grandfather.

In January 2003, my grandfather, dying of congestive heart failure, suffered a stroke. My grandmother and uncle, as well as my aunt and cousin (both town council members in another village) all gave explicit orders that nothing was to be done to shorten the life of my grandfather. My grandfather, lucid but half paralyzed, also made his wishes known.

A few hours later, in the few minutes it took a friend of the family to go to the lobby and get my uncle, my grandfather was injected and died.
My uncle and family friend got to the room and found my grandfather rolled onto his side with a single syringe on the tray next to him. (No such syringe was there before) His oxygen machine was already shut off. There was no indication that any resuscitation efforts had been made.

Two days latter when my mother and I came to look at the records, we were given a copy, with the crudely done changes, immediately apparent. (The white out on the original was of the wrong color, leaving a light areas on the copy. Different medications and notes where made just below this, with no mention of any injection near the time of death or notation that the patient had previously requested all life-saving measures.)

If you think this won't happen here as the government continues to encroach into medecine, you are already using "medicinal" items.

"They want to use the powers of the Federal Government to prevent you from reading Playboy magazine."
Generally, they want obscenity out the hands of minors.
That said, why should the rules of Soddom and Gamorray be foisted on the country? Obscenity has traditionally been a local issue.
What should apply in Greenwich Village won't work in Greenwich CT.

"Small government? Yeah right. More like a theocratic police state if you ask me."

Which sect?
I don't think you have any idea what a theocracy is.

"Sorry Karol - But it's a little hypocritical for you and other conservatives to complain about these things now(medicare entitlements, increased spending, etc.), when you were silent on all of these issues before the election.:

Different world view.

DL

Go and google the JRB speech "Whiter Shade of Pale." Read it. She is a brilliant constitutional scholar. No, socialism didnt exist at the time of the Constitution, but totalitarianism did, and totalitarianism, in effect, is socialism.

DL, look in my archives, I've criticized Bush on most of the issues I mention.

demand the best out of our leaders.

Bush blows.

big time.

Karol,

I love what you say here:

>>Make re-election for Senators and Congressman depend on whether they can stay true to their conservative ideals, especially in states where they can and will be challenged by real conservatives.

I hope you'll check out the Club for Growth, a very conservative PAC with an incredible record of backing conservative winners in primaries over RINOs.

Regards,

W.C. Varones

Personally I feel I'am a conservative, but more a pragmatic one than an idealogical one. For one I find teh Clinto admin to have been quite good. Didn't Clinton reduce domestic spending in contrast to Reagan an Bush I and II? Wasn't one of Gore's major accomplishments the National Performance Review which helped achieve that goal? Didn't Clinton actually reduce the number of federal employees? Isn't this what conservatives mean when they say small goverment?

On taxes I would say that Bush has done a good job although I do find that some of the breaks were obscenely skwered and that although federal tax income went up median income hasn't changed that much.

On international relations I find that Bush originaly had the right idea before 911. An isolationist policy focused on strengthening relations with South America. As best the intentions were in Iraq, I do not believe that this has benefitted the american people all that much. Sure they might have a good feeling that a dictator is disposed and some hope that this willl breed new democracy in an area that much needs it. Maybe it just had to be done, but still it jumps to mind that so many nations have failed before in Iraq and Afganistan that US succes is not that likely. On the other hand I feel this is a waste of time and money.

From all this I think my opinion would be that the current administration is quite liberal and if it is liberal than rather have it done well by a liberal which might even have some conservative influences.

Seeing as this thread isn't quite dead, I'd like to add that I am mostly a "one big thing" voter. I try to identify what the big issue is at a point in time and vote for the jerk who comes closest to getting it right, IMHO. With Reagan, it was the end-game against Communism. With Bush, it's about confronting Islamofascism. Reagan's opponents didn't get it until after he was well out of office, and Bush's won't either. And in both cases, when the world turns out to be a better place ten years down the road, their detractors will simply say both men were irrelevant to the final outcome, or in some vague way impeded it.

No, I'm not happy with Meirs, pork, fig-leaf evangelicism, and any number of other things coming out of the Administration right now. Frankly, I think Bush's slow response (slow politically, not slow administratively) to Katrina is a sign that the man is just tired, which worries me. But having said all that, right now, this moment, I'm glad Bush is in the White House. I just hope he gets his second wind soon.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist for constantly telling us what is or isn't true, what did or didn't happen...

I don't trust books. They're all fact and no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today. Because face it, folks, we are a divided nation... We are divided by those who think with their head, and those who know with their heart.

Consider Harriett Miers. If you think about Harriett Miers, of course her nomination's absurd! But the President didn't say he thought about this selection, he said this:

President Bush: "I know her heart."

Notice that he didn't say anything about her brain? He didn't have to. He feels the truth about Harriett Miers. And what about Iraq? If you think about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn't taking Saddam out feel like the right thing...right here in the gut? Because that's where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen...the gut.

Did you know that you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now, somebody's gonna say `I did look that up and its wrong'. Well, Mister, that's because you looked it up in a book. Next time, try looking it up in your gut. I did. And my gut tells me that's how our nervous system works.

Now I know some of you may not trust your gut...yet. But with my help you will. The "truthiness" is, anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news...at you.

Confusing Bush's big spending to mean Bush is a liberal is a mistake. Bush spending money does not make him a liberal.
All liberals are big spenders...
But not all big spenders are liberals.

Bush is spending money in ways and for purposes that is far from how a liberal would spend it.

I've never commented on your site but I really enjoyed this piece of writing.
I'm a conservative who has just recently taken an interest in what actually goes on in politics.

Thanks. :)

Of course we live in the real world and we should vote for the best candidate. Whether or not to stay home in 2006 is a question for a later day. The only arguably valid reason for doing so, as best I could tell, would be to allow the Democrats to take over Congress to pave the way for a Republican Congress that does things right. There's a lot to weigh there.

I'm not sure we are a 52/48 country. That was the talley between two men. Erase the two men and do a ballot test on "conservative" versus "liberal," and conservative will win by about 2-1. Of course, this denies the centrist, moderate option. But in the real world, that guy doesn't get on the ballot.

Going off to the fringe would be asking for trouble. Dorian's idea of Janice Rogers Brown explaining to the country why the New Deal is wrong is that of someone who has forgotten 1995, when we couldn't persuade a country that actually was listening that we should trim the growth of Medicare.

That doesn't mean Bush has to govern from the center, primarily because when Bush governs from the center he gets no political credit for it. That is why the prescription drug bill was such an awful mistake. It was a policy error for which Bush got nothing in return. He got no political credit whatsoever for giving people discounts on their drugs. Instead he was beaten up for a give away to drug companies (by the liberals) that cost too much (by the conservatives). Better to have done nother.

He could veto some bills and get away with it. He could take a principled position on immigration and get away with it. And he could certainly nominate a conservative judge and get away with it. He proved that with John Roberts.

Electing a conservative president *is* working to make America a more conservative country. Leaders have to lead. President Bush has not proven to be very good at that.

RonL's grandfather was murdered it sounds like.

Good riddance. One less guy to vote against gay marriage.

Dorian,

Socialism = totalitarianism? Last I checked - Sweden was not a totalitarian regime. Yeah they have high taxes - but last time I checked, that is what the voters of that country prefer.

If I had any advice - I would say don't be so simplistic in your worldview. Just because you read something on world Nut Daily once doesn't make it a fact.