[Nachum]

We typhooned it.

[Laptop_Ron]

While I don’t agree with P.J. on everything he writes here, but I do admire the way he writes it!

[joesbucks]

Instead of leading, we still needed a bogey man as a focal point.

[djsherin]

***No, we on the right did it.***

It’s not so much that we did it, but that we let it happen and we allowed ourselves to believe that some of our leaders were actually conservative.

[djsherin]

ping

[teletech]

How will conservatives ever pull the voters away from the liberal feeding trough? Liberalism is a sickness for which there is no known cure.

[metesky]

Who’s this “we”, P.J.?

[johnthebaptistmoore]

I agree that conservatism is almost dead-almost. When optimism by conservatives doesn’t actually become true, then it’s time to think about life outside of politics as much as humanly possible. I honestly don’t see any kind of serious and successful conservative comeback for, at least, sixty years, if ever. I should know, because I’m still stuck in Massachusetts, where both Republicanism and conservatism have been successfully suppressed for more than fifty years now and counting. Almost all elected Massachusetts Republicans at all levels are “leftist” Republicans anyways. And now, the majority of U.S. voters have made “Massachusetts politics” go national. This is really a profoundly bad thing to have done, and too many conservatives still don’t know the full extent of the political damage that’s really coming everybody’s way for a very long time.

[Names Ash Housewares]

It is delusional to think you can stop the political pendulum from swinging back and forth.

However,

We DID blow it.

Yes there was historical precedence that we would lose much this election, even before the the market meltdown.

Here is the good news...

We own the failure, that means we have the power of success as well.

Even the mighty Obama Messiah cannot stop conservatism when it is running no all eight cylinders.

I figure we were running on 2.5 cylinders this time.

Time to take the engine back to the garage and fix it.

RINO mechanics need not apply.

[MARTIAL MONK]

Sure we did but it ain't the end of the world.

There is always a tomorrow.

I am Joe the American.

[DwFry]

“There was no need to piss off the entire black population of America to get Dixie’s electoral votes. And despising cracker trash who have a laundry hamper full of bedsheets with eye-holes cut in them does not make a man a liberal.”

Thanks for your opinion...now please go f*@! yourself

[KansasCanadian]

Conservatism shall return—just look at Canadian politics right now. Conservatism from coast to coast—we just ran an extremely weak presidential nominee this time. And they ran a very attractive one—its an American Idol mentality

[fso301]

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age?

Gone with the Republican leadership hypocrisy revealed during the Clinton impeachment proceedings. I think McCain represented the end of the road of the impeachment compromised Republicans. From now one, new leaders can be raised up.

[TheThinker]

I think McCain typhooned it. He wanted to be so noble but there is no higher nobility than truth. He didn’t want to expose the truth about Obama and get his fingers dirty.

[Just mythoughts]

A liberal never accepts responsibility for their own actions. Too many Republicans fell under the liberal spell of ridicule, they reacted just as ‘hoped’ and now ‘change’ is on its way.

[Billy Bud]

Wow, it must be in our nature to keep falling on our swords no matter what the cost. Yes, we may have had a hand in the demise of conservatism over the last 28 years, but there is plenty of blame to go around.
The last two years there was a Democratic controlled Congress that had there own agenda. We had the ability to fight them, but apparently not the guts. Don’t forget the eight years of the infamous Clinton administration. He tried to push the agenda to the left and that immediately gave us Newt and Company.
Yes, we certainly could have done much better with the opportunities that were given to us, but let’s not totally destroy ourselves by falling on the sword. Rather, let’s take this opportunity to clean house and prioritize what the principles for this party should be as we start the 21st centure.

[Swing_Thought]

PJ's right about most of this. Fortunately, people have short memories, and that's a good thing because people are going to have to forget that is was a republican president who foisted the monstrosity known as the bailout on us, and that it was supported and engineered through congress by republican leadership in both the house and senate.

With the dems in charge and looking to add all sorts of additional spending, there will be ample opportunity for us to make the case that this stuff isn't free. That somebody has to pay. Somehow, we have to find an effective way of making PJ's point that government largess can only be paid for via higher taxes, borrowing or inflation, and that all three are harmful.

Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay.

"We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for worthless scams and pay it back 10 cents on the dollar.

"We can raise taxes. If the taxes are levied across the board, money will be taken from everyone's pocket, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and least advantaged will be harmed the most. If the taxes are levied only on the wealthy, money will be taken from wealthy people's pockets, hampering their capacity to make loans and investments, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and the least advantaged will be harmed the most.

"And we can borrow, building up a massive national debt. This will cause all of the above things to happen plus it will fund Red Chinese nuclear submarines that will be popping up in San Francisco Bay to get some decent Szechwan take-out.

Somehow, we have to pound this point home. And evidently, our republican leaders have to learn it too.

[nathanbedford]

O' Rourke, as ever, is entertaining. He is absolutely right and the principal thrust of his piece: we blew it.

But his piece reflects the split within the conservative movement between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, between paleo-conservative's and neocons, between conservatives and libertarians. O'Rourke is a libertarian. As such he dismisses the deaths of about 40 million babies. As such, he throws up his hands at almost any foreign intervention. As such, he pokes fun at those who would impeach a president who committed perjury, suborned perjury, hid evidence, conspired to do the above, all to fix a court case. In the next breath, O'Rourke deplores cultural breakdown of America.

My point is that conservativism must recover the unity of the three legged stool fashioned by Ronald Reagan: robust defense ; 2) fiscal conservatism; and 3) social conservatism. So long as those conservatives who do not share social conservative values are embarrassed by social conservatives, we have no hope for a comeback.

[bilhosty]

Once upon a time we had our Camelot. It was lead by our own King Arthur. His name wa Ronald Reagan.Just like King Arthur who in a moment of passion concieved Mordred with his sister Morgan, and caused his own undoing. Ronald Reagan brought us George H.W. Bush. Through three termws of the house of Bush they managed to take down Camelot and even lose the country. Yes, W. won Iraq but he lost America. some how it just does not seem like an even trade.

[DiogenesLaertius]

The same thing was said after 76 as well. The democrats have a full plate the next 4 years. The people who voted, voted for change and for the first black president.

Little did they know they were welcoming Jimmy Carter II.

HOpefully it pays off equally great electoral dividends for conservatives as did Jimmy Carter.

[Vet_6780]

This is a blessing in disguise.

Obama will go down in history as the POTUS who presided over American political and financial failure.

Within 3 years he will be the scourge of all Americans.