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We've become soft and uninvolved. We look at people like McRINO, Dewine, Collins, Snowe, etc., and wonder, "How the hell did we get here?"

The sad fact is, we don't get involved at the state/local level like we should. I'm slowly learning this having moved from a large state (CA) to a small one (NH). Fact is, the GOP here has had its ass handed to it over the last decade not because of the candidates necessarily, but because the state GOP just quit trying, while the 'Rats used every tool available to them to get elected. The result? A legislature that hadn't had a Democrat majority in 95 years just got sworn in for a second term, and a Democrat governor who just got sworn in for a third term. This is in a state which has had a Dem governor for a whopping 24 years since 1854, but over half of that within the past 30 years. The result? Spending increased by 17 percent in the last budget. Tolls doubled. Over 65 fees and taxes implemented or increased. My property tax has jumped nearly 15 percent in the last two years--an annual increase of nearly $500/year.

This is creating a backlash, but only because we've shipped the previous GOP state chair out of town on a rail (and replaced him with John Sununu) and started to demand our party act like CONSERVATIVES again. I heard that time and again when I volunteered this past fall. If I had a dime for every time I heard, "I'm not a Republican anymore, I'm a CONSERVATIVE..."

Now if the state and national GOP will start listening and focusing on conservative candidates instead of the country-club Republicans, we might get somewhere.