[LS]

I’m not sold on that interpretation. If it was one guy, yes. But Santorum, Burns, Hayworth, one of the IN House guys, Talent, Allen-—that’s just way too many “exceptions.” And I’m not sure how “conservative” the dems were who ran, or how conservatively they portrayed themselves. Webb, for ex., certainly didn’t portray himself as “conservative” on the war; and in OH, DeWine was beaten by a vastly more lib candidate.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’d challenge you to find vast numbers that ran on unapologetic leftist platforms. They didn’t. They took advantage of an anti-GOP atmosphere and in some cases got to the right of the incumbents, many of whom got caught with their britches down. The Burns race, as I cited, had zero to do with ideology. The media and the rodents portrayed him as simply corrupt or involved with shady figures. He was innocent, but that wasn’t conveniently revealed until AFTER the election of a rodent. The rodents play very, very dirty.

We had the potential to knock off MT’s Max Baucus in a previous contest with a decent and personable state legislator who was renowned for doing a good impersonation of Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, the rodents turned it against the Republican, ran some ads of him from the ‘70s cutting another man’s hair and implied he was a creepy gay hairdresser. Absolutely false gay-baiting sleaze that had the Republicans done it, they’d have been crucified. Nope, there’s a different set of rules for both parties. They get away with murder and we’re convicted before we even begin to campaign. If we can’t overcome THAT gap, we may never reclaim the majority again.

[Antoninus]

I’m not sold on that interpretation.

Here's the real story. Broken-glass conservatives are demoralized because the GOP has failed utterly to deliver on its promises for 14 years. The GOP has lost the confidence of the party's base. As a result, Republican voters are particularly susceptible to attacks calling their guys "liberals"--even if the accusations are bogus.

For the GOP, the need to re-establish that confidence with the base is paramount. Unfortunately, they don't seem willing or able to do so. They'd much rather go hunting for less certain votes in the mushy middle.

That's their current strategy and one that's likely to end in disaster.

The only solution for conservatives is to refuse to be part of the problem. If your local conservative is a mushy moderate, don't contribute to him/her. Send your money to a true-blue conservative in an embattled district somewhere else in the country.