I must qualify the impression that all of the people in on the townhall meeting were republicans...THEY WERE NOT. In fact, most of them were liberals. The phone list the congresswomen used included both.
I don’t believe that conservative principles have been discredited.....YET. I also agree with coloradan that Bush did not TEACH conservative principles and when he tried to, it was not reported as such.
The surest way to bring back conservative principles is to educate the masses exactly how all of these marxist programs that the dems want to enact will affect the economy and their own pocketbooks.
The best way to do that is to remind the voters just what happened when Jimmy Carter did far less than what Obama and Pelosi have planned.
Failing that....the leftist/Marxists win and American wakes up 4-8 years from now when our country is in shambles.
I agree that conservative principles need to be more widely held. But I'm afraid they can only come form the inside and cannot be 'taught,' especially to touchy feely emoting types.
My own experience in a conservative rural community agrees with your townhall meeting: I'm shocked at how many gimmee-gimmees there are, (most notably, government should DO something about this or that, and or, 'there oughta be a law' attitudes.)
At any rate teaching logical and rational cause and effect works ONLY with rational, logical people who are willing to learn.
The feminization of America has contributed to an emotional voter base, who merely 'feels' that buying a prius is helpful to the climate, who 'feels' uncomfortable around 'sinister looking' 'assault rifles', who feels that rich people and corporations should pay more of their 'fair' share.
And folks....Jimmuh Cottah was THIRTY YEARS AGO! People who voted for Jimmy for the first time to vote are 50ish or older.Kids who are voting for the first time this time WERE NOT ALIVE during Jimmy's debacle. All they know of Jimmy is what a wonderful, caring, peace-not-war kinda guy the media paints him as.
We've lulled ourselves to sleep since Reagan and this cold water is shocking.