And elephant being gored by a rhino, while a donkey looks on and says, "Thanks". (No puns on "gore", please.)
By the way, this is how Hillary wins in '08. She can't beat 40 per cent. That's her ceiling. She'll need a RINO to go the Independence route and siphon 11-12 per cent of the vote.
That's how anybody wins. A "true conservative" can't win by just winning the base. They'll end up with 35-40%. Likewise a "true liberal" can't win by just getting the base. They'll end up with 35-40%. It's always the candidate who wins the majority of the "mushy middle" who wins. That's not to say a "true conservative" or a "true liberal" can't win, they just have to be appealing enough to get the majority of the non-aligned voters.
Look at the past Republican winners to see how they did it. Reagan won his two terms exactly in this manner. He carried his base and won a sound majority of Indies and those not allied with a party affiliation, plus a good number of Dems who were okay with what he was saying and didn't feel threatened. George HW Bush also did it in '88, albeit to a lesser extent on the Dem vote than Reagan. Nixon was able to do it, barely, in '68, because of the overhang of another unpopular war, and handily in '72, because his opponent only appealed to his base.
That's what I've been trying to tell everyone. Run a RINO and you'll revive the '92/'96 Perot party!
We must find a conservative to lead us to the WH and regaining Congress. I believe we can do this by 2008 because in reality our losses were not so huge that we can't make up for it if we can find ourselves a Reagan/Gingrich spokesman.
FWIW, that's the only way Rick Perry won reelection. Texas is probably the most conservative state in the Union, and a sitting Republican governor only walked away with 40% of the vote. In 2004, when I was a representative to the McLennan County Republican Convention, Perry sent a representative to give us a "pep talk." The representative told us that the Republican party was the party of the big tent, and that if we were tied to a narrow ideological agenda we needed to leave, because the Republicans didn't need or want us. I stood up, waved at the man, and walked out. Yes, I still voted Republican, and voted for Perry, holding my nose while I did it.
However, just about everybody I know who voted for Perry held their noses while doing it. IF Strayhorn had not siphoned off 20% of the anti-Perry vote, I believe that the Rat would have won. Strayhorn's ENTIRE vote count was the anti-Perry vote, and that vote went right through the center of Texas, directly along the proposed path of the Trans-Texas Corridor. I live in central Texas, which is extremely conservative, and the hatred for Perry is palpable.
I've been slammed hard on this site for voicing opposition to the Trans-Texas corridor, but I have too many friends that are looking at the possibility of having their property condemned for it, and what's most galling to them is that Perry wants to award the contract to a foreign company.
NAFTA, open borders, and now the Trans-Texas corridor have really demoralized the Republican base here in Texas. I don't think the Democrats will be any better, but Republicans better wake up. Perry's ceiling in this state is 40% right now. Kaye Bailey has avoided scandal and stayed conservative, and she cruised. Perry made it pretty plain to the voters that multi-national corporations are more important to him than the citizens of Texas, and he barely survived.