Dear massadvj,
When conservatives fail to govern well, the people don't vote for them. When conservatives fail to even attempt to govern as conservatives, they lose credibility as conservatives.
Mr. Santorum may have tried to campaign as a "straight conservative," but unfortunately, his record had become mixed, at best. Part of the problem was the leadership position he'd taken on causing him to appear increasingly like a RINO.
People often vote for a choice rather than an echo.
I think that the difference between you and me is illuminated from your homepage.
"I believe the hope that was America, the hope for a land of freedom and individual liberty, is lost forever."
You've given in to despair.
I haven't.
sitetest
I don't know what state you are in, but here in PA the Republicans have been steadily losing ground for 10 years. I can tell you that Santorum did not lose because he wasn't conservative enough. Specter gets 65 percent of the vote here. Allen and Talent didn't lose because they weren't conservative enough, either. They all lost because they were positioned too far to the right and they let their opponents take the center ground.
About forty percent of the public is currently on the government till, and that percentage grows exponentially as boomers go into retirement. Half of Americans do not pay income taxes. I just don't see how a constitutionalist, small government platform can win in an election when well over half the people either aren't paying for government or are being paid by it.
With every passing administration in my lifetime of 54 years the government was larger and more repressive when the president left office than it had been when he began, including Reagan's. The same was true for my father's lifetime, and his father's lifetime. So, yes, all hope for a freedom-based, constitutionally-limited government is lost. I think it would be naive to think otherwise.
Heck, for the past six years the Republican congress and administration did more to kill conservatism than Clinton could ever have hoped to do.
I am 54 and given to a certain amount of pragmatism in my old age. When I was younger, I was more hopeful and spent a lot of time and money trying to advance liberty. I hope you succeed where my generation clearly failed. It will be all that much harder as the government will take more and more of your money so that I can live the good life in retirement. It's a pathetic mess created by politicians, I am afraid, and beyond the power, or even the desire, of the electorate to correct.
Look to California and Europe if you want to see what the future of America looks like.