[Bigtigermike]

Craig Shirley, president of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, is the author of two biographies of Ronald Reagan, including “Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All.” His most recent book is “December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World.”

[Uncle Miltie]

Some conservatives will be able to stand the stench and vote for “our” Socialist. I can’t. He smells too much of RomneyObamaCare.

[Keith in Iowa]

The choice of the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.

I refuse.

[redgolum]

This has happened before. The GOP will split, as will the DNC. A shotgun marriage doesn’t work well.

[Freestate316]

This is news? 1984 was the last year that the GOP had a candidate that conservatives could get excited about. GHWB lost because of Perot, Dole was a hideous candidate, GWB had his strengths but was a big spender, and McCain was Dole without the charisma. Now we have Romney.I will not give the RNC a penny. I am a fiscal and social conservative, so I guess that makes me a RINO! I am especially nauseated by their spineless refusal to defend candidates, and to not go after liberals.

[Darren McCarty]

The questions are these as a conservative.

1. Why did Mitt Romney win the primary?
2. What are the rules of the game>
3. What can we do in the future?
4. Is it feasible?
5. If yes, how? If no, why not?

6. Do we have the patience necessary to succeed?

A1 - He got more votes. That was due to good campaign organization by Mitt, and flawed opponents who either dropped early or self-destructed due to blunders or inexperience. Other potential winners did not run.

A2 - Know them. Study them. We know that many party apparatuses supported Mitt. How does one get appointed to a party apparatus? It's our party, too. In Michigan, precinct delegates elect county party leadership, and state delegates that pick their leadership. Most of those positions are also unfilled.

A3. We can build our party. We have a two feasible party system. There is not the structure, nor loyal electorate for other parties besides the two party system. What we need to do is become active in the party and take it over, long term. It doesn't get done in one election or two elections.

A4. Yes

A5. It's feasible through primaries and party leadership from the ground up. That's how Marco Rubio took out Charlie Crist. Counties and Districts.

A6. Right now. No. Most mainstream party activists support those who put in the work with the party. That's how most conservatives I know get in. They go to most, if not all the meetings, and also work on certain things. It takes years.

[ExCTCitizen]

Reagan’s words threatened the status quo of the scions and heiresses of the country club and corporate boardroom set. The former California governor and his conservative followers were never accepted by these insiders

We need to stay in the GOP, and kick the RINOs out. we started it in 2010 with the deefeat of Bennett...now we can defeat Lugar today. and tell the GOPe that we are taking over.

3rd party will hand the USA over to the American Zombie Party (aka Dems). The Republicans, without us, will help the AZP rip up the constitution!!

[Manic_Episode]

The GOP is now a pro-choice party, among other things. It would be immoral for me to support, approve, submit or vote for Mitt, the Whig.

I'm not taking my ball and going home, I'm playing ball at another field.

I do kind of secretly hope Mitt does beat Obama, but he will have to do it without my vote.

[tomkat]

Today's reply, for what it's worth, to a GØP e-beg :

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You people make yourselves complicit in annointing ØbamaLite (aka Rømney) and then SERIOUSLY have the nerve to ask us to pay for it ? ? ?

If the chameleon creep wants it badly enough, you're welcome to help him get it, or he can buy it on his own.

Given the GOP's utter disdain for Conservative principles, this will be my last election as a registered Republican.

Please remove me from your mailing lists.

[tomkat]

- - - - - -

It wasn't nearly nasty enough .. sorry if it disappointed anyone else

[x]

The RNC has always been the center of Republican insiderism — what the insiders call pragmatism. Consider, back when Roger Stone was at the Young Republicans, in 1975, he hung up a portrait of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in his office. Within hours, the order came down from the chairman’s suite: Take the picture down. At once.

Stone was not the only conservative with misgivings about the GOP. Reagan, the über outsider, called for a “new Republican Party” back in 1977. Reagan wanted the GOP to shed its country club, corporate boardroom image and become a genuine conservative movement, focused on the individual.

Okay, is that the Roger Stone who campaigned for Tom Kean and Arlen Specter and headed Specter's presidential bid?

Or is it the Roger Stone who backed Gary Johnson this year and just announced he was switching to the Libertarian Party.

Trick question: they're the same person.

It's hard to tell just who is the "establishment" or "the elite" and who isn't.

As with Roger Stone, you can be "establishment" or "elite" one year and a populist maverick the next.

You can be conservative and anti-establishment or moderate and establishment, but you can also be a conservative and very much a part of the party or ideological establishment and a moderate to liberal and very much an outsider.

Try this also from the article:

Many anti-establishment conservatives — including Mark Levin, Richard Viguerie, Vic Gold, Jeff Bell, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Don Devine and Joe Scarborough — have expressed profound misgivings that the GOP has evolved into an “insiders club only.”

For a lot of people, Tucker and Joe are as "establishment" (i.e. well-off and moderate to liberal) as anyone gets.

If they are outsiders, who are the insiders?

I doubt Bushite Sean Hannity and anti-Bushite Vic Gold have had much in common in recent years.

And Richard Viguerie has been playing at being "anti-establishment" so long that he's become very established himself.

Once you get a seat in the conclave -- even for a little while -- aren't you a part of the "insiders club"?

If all these people are "anti-establishment" they're anti-establishment in so many different ways as to make "establishment" a meaningless word.

[CharacterCounts]

I don't see how any conservative can be reconciled with the RNC after seeing how TEA party candidates were treated in 2010.

Message to Rove: you got him nominated - now you get him elected.