[Blind Eye Jones]

The MSM won the election and they are thanking the Dems for it! If you don't believe it watch CNN.

[CountryBumpkin]

I see it somewhat differently. The nationwide vote on Tuesday was not anti-conservative or anti-Republican. The vote was not pro-liberal or pro-Democrat. Instead, the average Joe and Jane voted pro-change and anti-war. Republicans were in power and held responsible. The sooner Republican politicians get their hands around that reality, the sooner they can work constructively on regaining the Congress.

[Andy from Beaverton]

In the end, the Republicans have only themselves to blame. If they had slammed the border shut, killed the prescription drug entitlement, and otherwise controlled government spending, they would have won handily.

The only thing he forgot was closing Iraq's borders.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

"Logic Times" = zero credibility.

[MaxMax]

If the electorate was demanding conservatism, then why did strong, principled conservatives lose?

Because there were no Conservatives Campaigning on Conservatism??

And those who were Conservative were hiding their principles.. (Cough Allen)

Call me stupid and lets go forward. We have 2-years to get us back on track.

God Bless America,
MaxMax.

[AndrewC]

then why did strong, principled conservatives lose?

Let me see.... Steele -- Maryland is certainly a conservative state. Blackwell -- Ohio's Republican's were the epitome of purity. Santorum -- Bob Casey was a completely Liberal opponent. George Allen -- James Webb is a liberal who hates Ronaldus Magnus. J.D. --- lost.

NOT!!

[TomGuy]

If Bush gets his amnesty for illegals, the GOP may face a long dry period before they ever get control of either Chamber. It make take them decades to ever get control again.

[Richard Axtell]

Conservative isn't something you are... its something you do. That being understood, the Republicans that lost didn't do enough "Conservative" to create the traditional and expected results. So, they were fired.

That doesn't mean Conservative ideas are rejected, as most of Rahm's Ramrods were at least superficially conservative in appearance. Now, do you think Nancy will allow a Conservative agenda to pervade her glorious reign as Queen Speaker? I think not.

So... Rahm has sold the American public a bill of goods, that are not really Conservative. It is up to us to not only stridently and vigorously point that out, but to offer the American electorate the real thing once again.

[Pukin Dog]

The article is stupid, foolish and wrong.

Limbaugh is 100% correct.

Conservatives didn't lose, they just didn't VOTE. They didn't vote because the Congress ran from Conservative issues for the past two years and what the Congressional Conservatives finally did near election time was not enough to overcome scandal and the MSM drumbeat.

Democrats ran as conservatives, and now moderate idiots want us to think that Conservatism is dead, so they can sneak McCain into office and govern from the squishy middle. One only need look at recent comments by Lindsay light-loafers Graham and Christy Todd Whitman to understand what is going on here.

Just as with the other side, we are now in a war for the soul of the Republican party. If it chooses moderates, it will be another 40 years before they regain power (and moderates don't care to lead anyway) but Conservatism ACTED upon never loses.

Being Conservative is not enough, if your party doesn't ACT conservative in front of media cameras and in the halls of Congress. Too many Republicans wanted Cocktail party status instead of remaining faithful to the Conservative ideal.

Why did Santorum lose? He supported Arlen Specter over a REAL conservative, who proceeded to almost kill our chances for Conservative Supreme Court justices. Santorum checked his standards at the door, as did those who gave money to Chaffee.

Conservatives stayed home.

The article is bull$hit.

[unsycophant]

Good summary. Thanks for posting it.

Blackwell ran on "Family Values" in a state where family values weren't an issue (so 90s). His opponent campaigned with education, financial incentives, economy, and government.

Blackwell didn't lose because he needed to be more conservative. Voters rejected him for those very concepts and instead went with someone who identified their core issues (jobs, education, government, economy).

[goldstategop]

Did we hear REPUBLICANS advance conservatism? As far the public was concerned, they may be forgiven for thinking if they were ALL Democrats and deserved to be fired.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[MaineVoter2002]

Another reason why the GOP lost so much in 2006 and Rush said this many months ago and touched on it again yesterday is that the GOP depended solely on Talk Radio to get their message out which is a major mistake because talk radio is independent from the Bush WH on several issues including Miers, Illegal Immigration, UAE Ports Deal...etc. Not all Americans are faithful listeners to AM radio therefore, if you didnt listen to AM radio your only alternative was the MSM.

Many months ago Rush mentioned this and said it was a big mistake. I agreed 100% with Rush.

I think you will find that instead of being creative, melhman was tuning into Talk Radio and getting his talking points for the campaign. It appears that the GOP ran using an anti-Pelosi scare tactic platform. There's nothing wrong with using this, but they totally left out issues.

The democrat opponents not only ran on the "we need a change" message but also (where it would help) ran on God, Guns and Pro-life.

Mix this all up with already angry conservatives and you have a distaster waiting to happen. And it did.

Democrat Win, Conservative Mandate

You can bet they will lead pushing liberalism

[TYVets]

Rush Limbaugh has it wrong,,,

Darn, and I thought Rush was perfect.

(/scar off)

After 18 years and 20,000,000 listeners he must get a few things right.

Rush is right. (That might make a good tagline?)

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

I think like EVERYTHING in this universe, things go in cycles (or circles). I also think two term Presidents are always going to have serious political problems in their second term. Its the law of the political jungle, and human nature.

[FreePoster]

The excerpt is misleading, but I agree with the basic idea in the full article that conservative dissatisfaction with Bush rubbed off on the swing voters.

Harriett Miers and the guest worker proposal were deep low points dividing Bush (representing the party) from the conservative party base. Bush Sr. had the same problem following the 1990 budget deal ("no new taxes" - oops), and once the party faithful lose faith, and stop promoting and defending their leader, it leaves him, and the party he represents, wide open to the opposition. Those low approval numbers include a lot of conservatives upset over border security, but those numbers get used by the media to discredit the war and the Republican Party. There is just no force in trying to say in early November, "But he's still better than the alternative." It's just too fine a point to make on swing voters. That being said, I don't think there was much choice about opposing Bush on those issues, so it is mainly Bush's fault for creating that rift.

I don't think there has been any substantial division between Bush and conservatives over the war on terror. But his weakness with his party just made him vulnerable to the media assault.

The lesson to be learned is that the Republican president should never flat-out alienate his base.

[taxesareforever]

Republicans got to learn the politics of the Initiatives. Initiatives that are dear to conservatives will bring them out. In states where marriage was on the ballot brought out conservatives. In states that had minimum wage on the ballot brought out liberals. IMHO.

[Maelstorm]

Strong conservatism didn't lose. Allen here in VA did not run as a strong conservative. He is one but he didn't run as one. You would've been hard pressed to even hear the Marriage Amendment which passed by clear majority. The mistake that was made was conservatives thinking everyone already knew they were conservative. They didn't think they had to make the great speeches and articulate their values and they lost because of it and the allowing of the Democrats to set the message with Foley and Iraq. They also lost because of the inability to stand up as conservatives and push a truly conservative agenda. Almost all the legislation that President Bush proposed was best described as Democrat light. At first it looked like "compassionate conservatism" might work but it clearly hasn't because no matter how much a conservative spends on new programs it won't be nearly as much nor nearly as compassionate or heart felt as a Democrat can do it.

[xzins]

This is a good article and makes some excellent points.

Harriet Miers, Dubai Ports, and Immigration were such angry, hateful in-house fights for Republicans that they did project the image that the party was totally unhealthy. Add to that the incessant "war is a shambles" and "republicans are corrupt" drumbeat from O'Reilly to Katie Couric, and the squishy independents who decide elections probably did get the idea that things were spiraling out of control. I agree that most conservatives/republicans did pull the republican lever at the end of the day. I can't believe that the "angry conservatives" who vote Democrat did so in huge numbers. What we lost were the independents and the squishy republicans who vote with us on our good days. We also miserably lost the information war.

[Pajamajan]

Interesting. The betrayed conservatives made "perfect" the enemy of "good", and helped to lose the election. But they aren't the whole reason for the loss.

Republicans still haven't figured out how to deal with the MSM and its continual attacks and distortions.

That said: I still can not believe that they turned our country over to rats. Unfreakinbelivable.

I think vote fraud might have played a part in the losses too. I understand in FL?- they found a bunch of votes where every other part of the ballot was counted, but the machine did not count the vote for senator.

Someone on the radio was asking how it was that people in Arizona voted for all measures on the ballot against illegals, but, then voted out the authors of the initiatives. Could this explain it? There's also the JD Hayworth race- they found hundreds of thousands of ballots that hadn't been counted.

But, I wonder if Republicans would have the cajones to look into vote fraud? I'm not sure they would. There is nothing more important than protecting the voting process, I mean, if the voter machines can be rigged- the pubbies will NEVER be elected again. That's it for our country.

[Recovering_Democrat]

If the electorate was demanding conservatism, then why did strong, principled conservatives lose? Incumbent conservatives such as Rick Santorum, George Allen, J.D. Hayworth and Curt Weldon to name a few. Superb conservative newcomers such as Ken Blackwell and Michael Steele.

What this guy fails to realize is that liberal Republicans lost; the election, in my opinion, was a normal six year election.

If the Republicans had held on to the Congress, this guy would NOT have been writing "Americans reject Democrats in all forms".

Republicans lost the normal number of seats. Let's pretend the governing party had ACTED like its base wanted them to act. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Then I see a different picture emerging! They probably would not have lost so many seats!