I’m sorry if that was painful for you to say.
My fear is the following:
I fear that there really has been a leftward drift in the minds of the majority of voters. They WANT handouts and redistribution — even if they’re still afraid to call it socialism. After Hussein’s “spread the wealth” comment, they couldn’t possibly be fooled into thinking that it’s really a “tax cut for the middle class.” Yes, it’s socialism, but they somehow feel guilty calling it by that name, probably because they know that it involves massive theft.
As for Palin, I never saw her as strictly a social conservative. Her commitment to low taxes, energy production, and competition, convinced me that she is conservative/libertarian on fiscal issues. Now, whether she is ideologically consistent enough to apply the ideas of “choice” and “competition” to all other areas - such as education - I don’t know.
I don’t know that much about Jindal yet. I’ve heard a lot of excellent things about him, though.
If there really has been this mental and moral drift to the left by the electorate, then the problem becomes more difficult: you have to educate people to understand freedom and how it can solve their problems. It’s not easy. It can’t be done by 2012 or even 2016. We’re talking at least a generation. The left has been infiltrating, and planning, and plotting a takeover like this for YEARS, and they achieved their goals largely through education: propaganda and indoctrination in the schools. “Community organizing” was effective because there was a sea of people who already tacitly believed in the efficacy of the welfare state; they just needed to be organized. If we want conservatism to be re-emergent, we’ll have to start with education; start with any idea or policy that can crack the monopoly that the state has over what a child is taught.
It’s not really about handouts and redistribution to the real voters. It’s never been about guilt. Those are distractions. It’s about One World Government dominance. The real voter has no voice.