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I don't find anything wrong with that argument as written, but it certainly implies a causal link that hasn't been proven. Namely, that the reason the country has slipped to the left is because conservatives or Republicans are willing to vote for the lesser of two evils. But I don't think that has anything to do with it.

If you'll give it a bit more thought, I believe you'll realize that it does.

We have five elections over twenty years, where an avowed Leftist campaigns against a person who claims to be a Conservative, but actually doesn't campaign by voicing staunch support for Conservative ideals. In this environment, nobody advances the premise that Conservative tenets are more sound than Leftist tenets. Both campaign from a Leftist point of view, but one is less of a Leftist than the other.

Does Conservatism grow stronger under this model? No. It's impossible for it to. It grows weaker, and that's precisely what has taken place.

The problem isn't conservatives voting for the lesser of two evils. Oh yes it is. If Conservatives won't take a stand against Leftists within their own ranks, then they'll fall for anything. McCain..., Romney...

The problem is that the horde of liberals and mushy-minded moderates all get to vote too, and they don't want the same people we do. We could have said the same thing in Reagan's day. Instead of adopting that strategy, Reagan reached out to Democrats by making sound arguments. He prevailed because he supported sound policy, and sold it to others. Who is selling it these days? Nobody.

The stark reality is that conservatives are not the majority in this country. So if we want conservatives to win Presidential elections, we have to be fortunate enough to either 1) be running against a really crummy, uncharismatic Democrat, or 2) have a truly great conservative candidate. Not true. I don't think that's an outlandish comment by any means, but it is misguided. If we want Conservatives to win, our party has to endorse them, support them, and keep lofting them. I'm not making the case they will always win. I am making the case that when our time does come to gain the leadership, a Conservative will be the person installed into office. Our party clearly fights to defeat this reality. In his day, Reagan WAS NOT the RNC favorite. George Bush was. None the less, Democrats reached out to thim and supported him. The same dynamic is alive and well today. Most people don't realize it.

Are you aware of the percentage of the populace that considers themselves to be a Conservative vs a Liberal? 41 vs 21% LINK

Sadly the RNC is operating under the same misconception you are.

Unfortunately, neither of those was available to us in this campaign cycle. I don't see that as a justification to give up on opposing the greater of two evils because of the greater damage that can be done by that greater evil. And, it seems obvious to me that conservatives are certainly going to have more influence over a GOP President than a Democrat who will be pandering to his base heavily his entire second term.

Okay, then you buy into the idea that we must always vote for the (R), no matter what. I say that because the Leftist is always without fail described as someone we can't allow to be elected, or the nation will crumble. Strangely, the more this seemed to make sense, the more Leftist our candidates(R) happened to turn out to be. Now we're at the point that folks who partner with Soros, Kennedy, Kerry et al are the folks we're being asked to support. McCain formed a 501c(3) with Soros, Teressa Heinz Kerry, and the Tides Foundation. Look at what Romney has been up to. Who needs Democrats when you have the level of treachery on our own side?

I'm not saying this to be mean, but you're playing right into the hands of the RNC here. You're proving them right. We'll vote for anything with an (R) after it. Why should they move back to the Right, if they can get people this Leftist elected? Do you want people this Leftist? I don't think you do.

Just because the President is a Republican doesn't mean conservatives can't loudly and strongly oppose his policies with which we disagree. Look, if you want to kid yourself that Republican Senators and Congressmen stand up to Republican presidents, go ahead. The Medicare Prescription plan? The Kennedy/McCain Immigration Reform Act? Nice try. Lest you forget, the Immigration Reform Act was a done deal, if McCain hadn't wanted to run for the presidency. The Democrats were in charge. They had the votes. Republicans would have joined them. So no, failing the withdrawel of support by one of the drafters, this bill passes. Is anyone at all operating under the delusion that McCain wouldn't have revived this as soon as he was elected? It was the realization of this that more than anything else, cost McCain the election. And remember, he was the lesser of two evils. His bill would have seen over 100 million Mexican nationals become U. S. Citizen in under 20 years.

As much of a squishy moderate as Bush was on some issues, I think most of us would agree this country would be in even worse shape if Gore of Kerry had been elected in his stead. And it does us no good if the patient dies before we can find the right doctor.

If the Republican party couldn't get Bush elected without Conservative support, do you think the next candidate would have been less or more Conservative? Yes, we got Bush elected, and then he proceded to join with the Republicans and the Democrats to shape the nation that was handed off to Barack Obama. Tell me this destroys my arguments here. Well, you can't.

Do I want Kerry, Gore, Obama, in office? No. At the same time, I don't want Bush, McCain, and Romney in office. I'm sorry, but the RNC will never get the message if we don't send it loud and clear. This nation will get no better, and will only get worse until it gets that message. Now, when will we send that message if not now?

In this environment, nobody advances the premise that Conservative tenets are more sound than Leftist tenets. Both campaign from a Leftist point of view, but one is less of a Leftist than the other.

I disagree right there. There are plenty of people espoousing conservative ideals, and they at least get presented as the alternative to what the Democrat does. And frankly, in this election cycle, Romney has rhetorically been a big booster of capitalism. It's his record on related issues that's the problem, but the conservative message is definitely getting out there even if conservatives themselves doubt his sincerity.

Okay, so your example is a guy who expouses the evils of abortion, but supported it for decades. He now speaks out against Obamacare, but he himself supported the individual mandate to get his own health care bill passed in Massachusetts. He's a strong supporter of gun rights, but signed on to many gun control efforts in the past. He is the loudest voice on our team, gets full support from the RNC, Republican talking heads, Republican office holders, and the Republican elites, but is his own walking nullification.

This is what strikes you as the Republican party getting Conservatism's message out there? LOL Okay. Does it ever occur to you that a man like this actually destroys our message, cheapens it, causes folks to look at Conservatives as liars and worse?

The RNC should have made it clear from day one, that Romney was a bridge too far. He was able to run roughshod over Newt and Santorum. I have no doubt that others who didn't have as deep pockets as Romnye did, decidced to stay out rather then go broke.

Romney was Conservatism's 2012 poison pill. His message was brought to you by the entirely too willing RNCe.

The problem has been that conservative ideals are "tougher love" than the surface coddling that liberals offer, so it takes an exceptional messenger to make that case effectively.

No, it merely takes a messenger that has espoused these policies for more than six months. Having done that, it must also be a person with a loud enough voice that he won't be drowned out by someone spending six to ten times more money, to denegrate him with non-stop television spots, to the point that nobody else's voice could be heard above the din. That's exactly what we had going on this year.

What we utlimately found out this year, is that the RNCe has no standards whatsoever. Any person can register as a Republican and do whatever they like for decades against almost every tenet of Conservatism, then decide to run for the presidency with the RNCe's full blessing.

If we want Conservatives to win, our party has to endorse them, support them, and keep lofting them. I'm not making the case they will always win. I am making the case that when our time does come to gain the leadership, a Conservative will be the person installed into office.

I don't see the virtue in drilling holes in the bottom of the boat so that the water runs out faster while waiting for that conservative to emerge. by then, we may be sunk.

I don't disagree with your premise, but I'm not confident you are seeing this clearly.

What we actually have is a boat with a good sized hole in it, we need someone to block that hole, and you don't see a problem with a guy(R) holding a smaller drill bit headed into the boat. What do you expect him to do with that drill? Stop leaks? NO, he wants to make more. They'll probably be smaller, but they'll still let more water in. When do we STOP putting in guys with a drill in their hand? McCain, Romney,... more holes... Look at the holes our last guy drilled in the bottom of the boat. Hell, he came very close to sinking the thing with the help of others. Enough already!

Our party clearly fights to defeat this reality. In his day, Reagan WAS NOT the RNC favorite. George Bush was. None the less, Democrats reached out to thim and supported him. The same dynamic is alive and well today. Most people don't realize it.

The problem, again, is that we don't have a Reagan running. We had a pretty flawed slate of candidates. The reason we haven't nominated another Reagan is that another Reagan hasn't chosen to run.

We've got a guy running with hundreds of millions, and we can't understand why a guy with a few million won't decide to run. As long as the RNCe allows wealthy or well-known Leftists to continue to choke the field, we'll continue to get the Leftists. What part of this are you missing?

Are you aware of the percentage of the populace that considers themselves to be a Conservative vs a Liberal? 41 vs 21%

41% is not a majority. It gets you 41% of the electorate. In any case, peoples' definition of conservative may be ideosyncratic, and may not match yours or mine. But more importantly, if we assume that number is correct, then why didn't that 41% nominate a great conservative? It's because there wasn't one running. That was the core reason we're stuck with Romney today. Crud, the primaries showed that GOP voters kept flocking to the next non-Romney, in the vain hope they'd turn out to be the next Reagan. And they all failed. I voted for Gingrich, but I'd admit that he isn't Reagan either. No, he isn't. I agree with that. I'm not a big supporter of Newt. I could vote for him, but it would be grudgingly.

Earlier you were stating that the majority of U. S. Citizens were not Conservative. I point out that only 21% of the public claim to be Liberals, and you respond by telling me 41% is not a majority. Pardon me for pointing it out, but 21% isn't either. The fact remains, people self-declare to be Conservative by almost twice the number who self-declare to be Liberal. Why are we not appealing to those self-declared Conservatives and enough of a small portion of the self-declared moderates to win? Instead the RNCe backs the most Leftist candidate every four years. Why are we continuing to fight for the 21% that declare to be Leftists? It makes no sense whatsoever, and yet here we go again. I'll ask you directly. Why do you find yourself compelled to support this?

The core problem we've had is a lack of good candidates. And honestly, the only "fault" we can attach to that is to those non-existent candidates themselves. The best I've seen recently is Rubio in terms of the ability to communicate the conservative message effectively, but he's still unripe. I just want to be sure we still have a country when he's ready to run in 2016.

Does he have $200 million dollars? If he doesn't, and another Leftist with $200 million decides to run, don't count on a good candidate coming forward.

BTW, my problems isn't the money or the fame, it's the way a person has lived their lives and whether they can be trusted to mean what they say today?

I also have a big problem with the RNCe's policy of being willing to back any Leftist slimeball(R) whatsoever for the presidency.

Thanks for the discussion. I know some of this is rather pointed, but I'm not upset with you. I'm just frustrated by what we are continually faced with every four years. I want it to stop.

If the Republican party couldn't get Bush elected without Conservative support, do you think the next candidate would have been less or more Conservative? Yes, we got Bush elected, and then he proceded to join with the Republicans and the Democrats to shape the nation that was handed off to Barack Obama. Tell me this destroys my arguments here. Well, you can't.

This is a major part of the problem in my view. The elder Bush gave us a more expensive government, then lost to Clinton. Dole - lost to Clinton. George W. Bush - gave us the biggest, most expensive, most powerful, and most intrusive government in our nation's history, and then with the help of McCain handed it off to Obama to abuse even more.

Obama looked at how Bush made the government more powerful and more intrusive, and decided he could make it even more powerful and more intrusive.

This is what voting for the GOP has gotten us since 1988 - more government which we then gave to the Democrats, and Romney is just more of the same, only a lot more liberal.

I'm with you, I'm done with the GOP as a party if Romney gets the nomination. The Republican Presidential nominees have done great harm to this country since 1988, and we are running out of time. This idea that things will eventually improve if we just bend over one more time is ridiculous. The Republican establishment is running out the clock on us, and we aren't willing to call a time out.