Outside of your consistent contradictions of yourself, what you are saying is that we should vote Democrats in instead of voting for conservative individuals who will be accountable to us as conservatives (I use "us" very loosely here) by not voting for Republicans or sitting it out. You claim to want the Republicans to be held accountable to conservatives, yet you would rather have Democrats in office which would only result in NO ONE being held accountable to conservatives. I might almost buy into your sincerity about wanting to turn things around if you weren't so persistent that we are on this cliff that you so desperately want to shove us off.
I think you have intimidated the weak into silence (at least when it comes to you).
Republicans have controlled Congress since 1994. To their credit, the Congress elected in that year passed most of the Contract with America. Republicans proved that they were politicians rather than statesmen by failing miserably on the TERM LIMITS part of the Contract. Dole may have lost a sacred place in history when he dropped the ball on the Balanced Budget Amendment. After that, the Republicans have taken us down hill with a constant erosion of power in every election since.
I am trying to convince you and the Republican leadership that Republicans win elections and gain power when they are at their most conservative. And they lose ground or power when they move to the middle or worse to the left. With the single exception of the move to the right in 1994, Republicans are no longer taking the country to the right. They are in fact enacting the agenda of the left. And with each election, the Republicans lose more seats.
I am suggesting that we can drag the Republicans back on track by our discussions on this forum. If we don't succeed in dragging them back, then yes by all means, let the Democrats gain control. The Republican leadership is smart enough to figure out that if they want to win in 2004, they will have to be nice to Conservatives and do what conservatives want if the Republicans want to regain power. In the mean time, Democrats won't be able to do much damage if Bush is a real conservative. His veto should be virtually bullet proof. Surely the Republicans could muster that much.
If I am wrong about this, it really isn't going to matter much. A Cato paper concludes that there is no second best alternative to privatization.