Speaking for my self, I vote Republican because of people like Tom Coburn, not Michael Steele. If your pal "Zak" succeeds in liberalizing your "grand party" like it was during Lincoln - I'll be writing in Daffy Duck.
Furthermore... claiming Lincoln was "conservative" is no different than claiming, Lenin was Jeffersonian.
While it may be true, Southerners learned a strong distaste for your candidates after that sour milk your hero served up. It is today, as it should be. Lincoln's radical party was chugged full of progressives, and Marxist revolutionaries - Much like Obama's is today. :)
You must think I'm someone else. I've said nothing about Michael Steele -- for or against.
Idabilly: "If your pal "Zak" succeeds in liberalizing your "grand party" like it was during Lincoln - I'll be writing in Daffy Duck."
"Daffy" is certainly the correct word to describe your sentence here. It makes no sense whatever.
Idabilly: "Furthermore... claiming Lincoln was "conservative" is no different than claiming, Lenin was Jeffersonian."
Modern usages of "liberal" and "conservative" had no meaning in 1850s era politics.
For example, Lincoln was best known for his anti-slavery arguments, but no one called him a "liberal" or "conservative" because of it -- those words weren't used.
Now if you wish to claim, after the fact, that Lincoln's anti-slavery arguments made him some kind of "liberal," then remember the debate until 1860 was about whether Federal Government power should be used to enforce slavery in territories and states where it did not then exist?
Lincoln said "no," Federal power should not be used to expand slavery. How does that make him a big-government liberal? How does it make the South small government conservatives?
But a key argument I've made here is that each of our previous administrations and Federal governments were smaller than the ones which came after it.
Thus, for example, Lincoln's Federal government was less than 10% the size of today's, even allowing for differences in the nation's population.
Even Franklin Roosevelt's government, while vastly larger than Lincoln's was still much smaller than today's.
And remember, Liberal Progressive Democrat Roosevelt got 80% to 90% of the Deep South's vote.
So don't try to tell us the South has always been rock-solid conservative. It's not true.