I am still an optimist re: the Presidency, I think we can win the Presidency with a social and fiscal Conservative— if the right man runs. I hope Fred is that man but it is too soon to tell, and he isn’t in the race.
I think Rudy is already sinking based on his liberal social issues and the fact that a lot of his popularity is 9-11 based and this can and will most likely wear off (see Bush 43).
The Senate however is a different story for the 2008 election, with the 33 seats that are up, there is not a lot of room for any errors. I am not optimistic here. We are going to have a very difficult time taking a 51 seat majority. It is going to require us to win all the seats in the Red states that are currently Dem Senators, while holding some seats in Purple states. It can happen, but it will be an almost perfect effort, which the GOP hasn’t shown the ability to pull off in a while.
And the Senate is almost the same importance as the Presidency as it pertains to the SCOTUS. And Rudy and a Dem Senate do not make me feel good about the chances for more Alito/Scalia/Thomas justices on the Roberts court. A Conservative President and a liberal Senate will also have a VERY hard time getting good Justices seated.
I think it is likely that we will retake the House as all seats are again up for grabs.
I disagree with you on the Iraq War, which was quickly won and which is a necessary battle in the WoT. I think we should still be more decisive and more ruthless in our tactic in this war to get it over with sooner. And since I am not privy to all the intelligence re: Iran, and NK, I will give our President the benefit of the doubt regarding his decisions.
One last thing, when you talk about “economic liberals” like Hillary/Obama or are you using the old definition of that term?
I might be described as an “economic conservative” as, in America, that means economic liberal.
BTW “fiscal conservative” sometimes means favoring higher taxes in order to balance the budget as opposed to lowering taxes in order to balance the budget by spurring economic growth (i.e., it’s the opposite of “supply-sider”).