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Thanks for your obviously thoughtful reply. I must confess that I did not give near the amount of thought in my post as you did in your reply. I agree with much of what you said. I won’t respond as fully as you did. My brief thoughts are:

I can’t say that I know the Republican position on all issues, and not being a particularly partisan person (although I AM conservative), I am not all that sure I care too much. And how does one determien what the party’s position is? By its leadership’s statement? By its platform (whereever it is)? By the postion taken by the majority of the party’s members? I think in most cases it won’t matter where the position is taken from because the position will be the same.

But parties change over time. I think it is likely, but not certain, that Laura Bush’s positions on gay marriage, etc. are inconsistent with those held by most Republicans.

I do disagree with what I think you said about education. Yes, it is the duty of voters to learn what the party stands for, using that information to decide whether to belong to a party or not. But we should make that information, and more importantly, the reasoning behind the positions, known and easily available to all.

I’ll stop here, closing with the thought that Republicans ought to assess what their party stands for, what the members of the party believe, and whether there is any disconnect. If there is, that disconnect should be resolved in one way or another. I will almost certainly continue to be a Republican, and will vote Republican if for no other reason than I know I can’t agree with the principles (if you can call them that) of the Democrat party.

Thanks for the response. I tend to get a bit verbose with my responses. I'm glad that didn't put you off.
I can understand why you don't know the Republican position on all issues. So many Republican candidates have different postions. Oh, like I mentioned in my first reply, they run toward the right, but when voting time comes around, they find reasons to vote with the Democrats when they shouldn't. Then the party leadership says nothing, and you're left wondering, What the heck? How could you know? How could the public know?

You've got a guy like John MeCain showing up on every talking head show on the weekends, and he blathers on moving across the line to sound like a Democrat more than half the time. People at home are thinking, "See Wilbur, I told you there wasn't a nickle's worth of difference between the two parties."

So yes, we can say the public isn't doing their job. We can also say the public could be escused for being somewhat confused as to what our party stands for. Some Repbulicans will disagree with me, but I think it's the job of the RNC to speak out when politicians like MeCain turn into Democrats for periods of time.

The Republican party is supposed to stand for...

1. a strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution
2. small federal government (Why? Because a stong large federal government will oppress you, either directly or indirectly.)
3. low government spending (The fed gov has very few legitimate tasks. None the less, today it employs close to or over half the wage earners in the U.S. And they create nothing. Non-self-sustaining)
4. low taxation (You work for it. Your family should benefit from it. Your community should, by your engagement in commerce.)
5. keeping the decisions that affect citizens, as close to the public as possible (local vs federal) (Your state and city should be devising 90 to 95% of the policies that affect you.)
6. respecting the right of the unborn to remain viable (as the reverse is to continue to kill over one milline fetuses per year) (big business, terrible moral quagmire)
7. keep our military forces strong, second to none (this is where the legitimate spending comes in)
8. keep business unhindered by regulations and taxation, small businesses especially (Why? Because businesses that are unhindered hire, reinvest, and produce at an elevated rate.)
9. keep the federal hands off the banking and stocks industry for the most part (Because intervention sooner or later becomes political. And the feds can't control themselves. They go too far.)
10. set foreign and trade policy that strengthens the U.S. and it's citizens working environment, and does not strengthen our enemies
11. do not sign international agreements that abdicates percentages of our sovereignty
12. do not allow any foreign nation to invade us with or without weapons to the point that assimilation is nearly impossible and our national make-up is changed in short order
13. do not force our citizens to bear the burden of massive debt, the support of other citizens or non-citizens
14. do not single out groups of people based on race or financial standing (present sound policies that provide ways for everyone to advance, or remain at their current station)
15. do not take from one citizen to give to another (you work for it, it should be yours)
16. do not provide support to the public that makes it almost as advantageous to stay home, as it is to work.

Some of these are repetitive. One or two actually include my own (the way it ought to be) bias.

Someone is invariably going to think of something important I left out here. They may quibble with some of the items, but this is generally a decent outline.

You do need to care about these things. I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on you, but these things are important to you, your family, your community, your state, and your (our) future. And if you understand them, you will be quite partisain. The Left wants to turn this nation into 1930s Russia. They want us isolated and weak.

Laura's positions on abortion and homosexual marriages are both counter to the Republican point of view. We are a judeo Christian based nation. We derived our moral footing from that, and it's important to have one. I do not think we should go radical on these issues, but there is clearly a moral stand to be taken with regard to them. We should not be depriving little healthy human beings from being born and living the life they were intended to live. We should not be subsidizing or legitmizing what has been considered to be behaviors that were outside the bounds of civilized peoples since recorded history began. That does not mean we should single them out and take action against them. It just means that society has a vested interest in the one man one woman family model.

I'm going to agree with you on education. Although I did say that folks must educate themselves, there is a limit to how well you can unless things are clearly spelled out for you. The RNC should do a better job of desminating it's platform to the public. I'm going to be honest though, they may have it available on the RNC web site for all I know. If so, the burden goes back to the individual. It also rests on the candidates that should be echoing the party platform very closely. Of course that depends on whether the RNC platform is ture to our ideals.

I have voted Republican my whole life, based on the idea I could not stomach the positions of the Left. Over the last twenty years, I have come to the place where I'm not as easily able to vote for Republican candidates. Number one, I don't agree with some of their agenda, and more importantly, I just don't believe about 75% of what they say. Meg Whiteman is a good example. Here's a woman who didn't vote for 28 years. She didn't vote for Reagan, didn't vote against any Democrats, didn't vote for California's governers, our initiatives, at times when very important matters were being decided. During the same period of time she donated to the cream of the crop of Leftist idiots. Boxer, Kerry... And then she worked for MeCain.
<>Now she claims she's one of us, and rattles off a great list of things she believes in. And yet, her money went to folks who didn't agree with any of it. She claims to be tough on illegal immigration, but her last effort was to back a man who disagreed with her on every point. I don't trust her.

Take care.