To me, the baseline principles around which we’re organizing are fairly obvious and not likely to cause much internecine bickering. Go back to Conscience of a Conservative by Goldwater or Reagan’s great 1964 speech or any number of Buckley tracts, etc. For a modern text, I bet Mark Levin’s new book will fill the bill nicely. Rush’s CPAC speech hit most of the points that really matter.
As for how we lost our way, I don’t think we did. I think W. got painted by the Left as a conservative and we ended up taking his lumps as if they were ours. I like W. and all, but when he called himself a “compassionate conservative” I understood I was being insulted. But I think every conservative should be allowed to leave the ranch and go wobbly on one issue and still be allowed to retain their conservative credentials. Tammy Bruce is pro-abort but I still love listening to her and agree with almost everything else she says.
Electoral politics ends up being a pragmatic exercise no matter how idelogical you are at the outset. I worked as part of team that converted Democrats to Reagan in 1980. We’d go into union, Dem households (in Pa. and Md.) and talk to people about meat and potatoes issues. You don’t get very far if you are iron-fisted about hundreds of issues.
The idea is: get a conservative nominated and go out and win. The conservative spoils will follow. Hell, Reagan took down the Soviets. If I had to bite my tongue a little on the abortion issue while sitting in a living room in Allentown to have helped make THAT happen....
In the SF Bay Area, go to
http://www.meetup.com/WeSurroundThem-SFBayArea/
Their own master web site is coming. I just got
back from the main organization meeting. This
is the real deal conservative revolution.