Replies

Imagine what happens to a young conservative in his first term, when a wise old eminence grise sits him down and has The Talk with him. The one that goes something like this:

"Look, son - I know you want to do right by your constituents and you think we are all a bunch of sellouts up here. But you have to understand how laws really get made. It takes a lot of money. It takes lot of support from a whole lot of people I don't like any better than you do. It takes help from the other side - and some of them do get it. They aren't all Communists over there. What I'm trying to say is that to get some of what you want, to help your voters out even a little bit, you've got to follow the process. And sometimes, that means voting for bills you don't like much at all - but some of what you want is in there and at the end of the day you've moved the ball a little closer to our goal line. Now I'm here to help you in any way I can, but you have to pay some attention to the leadership and to party discipline - or none of us will get any of what we want. Come on - I'll buy you lunch and we can talk some more about how it all works."

After the initial outrage wears off, even the staunchest conservative starts to realize that the old man just might be right. Getting a little bit of something positive done is a whole lot better than getting nothing at all. And it's a lot easier than fighting the whole party establishment, who are not paying attention to him, anyway. And thus, bit by bit, a new RINO is slowly born.

Aside from strict term limits it's hard to see any fix for this problem.