[rabscuttle385]

We conservatives can have all the arguments about the particulars of policy implementation....AFTER we're in a position to make policy in the first place. Until then, let's organise around a coherent, common sense set of principles and get busy winning America back for conservatism!

Your suggested approach is part of what got conservatives into their present situation in the first place.

Implementation is important. Small, limited government—and that *is* implementation right there—in accordance with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and other foundational U.S. social contracts is, and ought to be, the heart of the conservative movement. In more philosophical terms, small, limited government that protects the individual's God-given rights to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness...that's the real core of conservatism, that's the real "coherent, common set of principles" that conservatives ought to rally around.

Otherwise, all you've got is a bunch of folks who are willing to install their views on their country and their states, by any means necessary, including resorting to the machinations of Big Government, thereby creating a political machinery that can be later turned against them, and in service of a different yet contradictory set of views to their own.

Both parties have displayed a certain willingness (or, in the case of the Democratic Party, explicit desire) to resort to collectivist, Big Government principles in order to fulfill their own agendas. If you want to differentiate the conservative movement, and its primary, yet not only, political vehicle, the Republican Party, from the left-wing forces of evil, then you ought to take up the cross of small, limited, Constitutional government.

[Bearshouse]

then you ought to take up the cross of small, limited, Constitutional government.

Perfectly stated. As long as this is the focus of our efforts the candidates will emerge.

[GoLightly]

You & I seem to be on the same page & I wanted t share an observation.

Federalization of fiscal already seems like a done deal, with all parties, including most “third” parties buying into belief that the Fed should in control. Talk about defanging something like the FDA & you'll get screams about public safety.

Still, I think that most people who are conservative on social issues are going to be more difficult to get on board. Federally legislating their flavor of morality is attractive, despite the fact that social pressure is generally more effective, while laws, not so much.