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But you are more than a social conservative -- you are a conservative both social and fiscal from what I have read of your posts. That is what I was trying to get across. I am both as well.

I fought with the "purist" as they call themselves starting in 1999 when I first came on here so we go way back and they were threatening back them to pick up their ball and leave -- told them to go then as well. Nothing is ever good enough for them -- we actually have some of those types in my County and State -- they belong to the Republican Assemblies -- bunch of malcontents always threatening not to vote Republican because they are the "social" conscience of Republicans. They are not my social conscience -- I do just fine on my own supporting candidates like Dr. Tom, Sen Inhofe, and others. I work in campaigns from the grassroots to elect more conservatives and the only people I ever meet threatening to stay home and not vote call themselves "social" conservatives. I am just a plain old Conservative Republican that is pro-life and supports pro-life candidates -- easy for me -- I live in Oklahoma. Now you know why I said what I did about "social" conservatives -- have to be a fiscal as well IMHO to call yourself a conservative.

I didn't come up with the title "social" conservative and never even heard it until I came on here. I thought conservative meant you were pro-life and pro-tax cuts which meant you would be Republican.

Thanks for your kind words but I must confess to being less fiscally conservative nowadays than I used to be. This is, however, a distinction without much difference, because it means that I care much less about fiscal matters than about social issues or military matters or foreign policy or some other matters.

If we spend money (well-budgeted and accounted for money) on the war against terrorism or the war in Iraq or the War in Afghanistan, I am less worried about the amount of spending than I am about achieving victory as a military outcome. If it means providing first-rate medical care to the soldiers, that's very OK too.

If I knew that we could end abortion only by spending an affordable amount of money (I cannot imagine a real-world scenario on this but just for the sake of argument), I would spend the money as the lesser of two evils. I regard abortion as the single worst evil in our nation's history.

Fortunately, we seldom need to make a choice between fiscal conservatism and social conservatism since the GOP is the primary vehicle for both forms.

There is a Republican Assembly in Illinois but I have never met any of them. In the rural Northwestern areas of Illinois, we are too busy electing conservative Republicans to worry too much about forming internal caucuses much less about giving primary loyalty to groups independent of the GOP. This strategy works. John Anderson (of World Federalist and 3rd party presidential candidacy fame) used to be the congresscritter here. Today, he could not get elected dogcatcher here even by Republicans who might not be doglovers. Don Manzullo, our current Congressman, is one of the most conservative in Congress.

Of course, we are still aspiring to emulate those who have been represnted by Nickles, Inhofe, Coburn (especially Coburn: we are "purely" green with envy). We are trying to see other areas of Illinois be similarly determined to shred Durbin, Blagojevich (or however he spells his name) and Obama (as one Freeper put it, like Lincoln only better, at least in his own mind).

God bless you and yours.