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maybe there are local well-known conservatives who would contribute a written piece on occasion.

I'm late arriving to this thread, so this may have perhaps already been mentioned, but....

There's the possibility that you can make arrangements to reprint an article or opinion piece from another outlet in exchange for subscription information or some other "scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours" consideration.

For example, the newspaper could run a piece that got very little mainstream press attention -- like the Wall Street Journal article that documented the actual losses to the Baghdad Museum. Then, below the copyright information, you could list the subscription info and then also run a box ad for the WSJ adjacent to the article or elsewhere in the paper. (IF the author of the original article retained the copyright to the piece, you may have to deal directly with the author -- either via the WSJ or through the contact info they provide.)

Book excerpts are another possibility. Many authors will let you reprint a sample chapter from a book in exchange for book ISBN and other purchase details.

There's another advantage to taking either of these approaches: You could do "topic" issues of the newspapers. Whether or not you also have late-breaking, headline news is optional, but the more information that can be compiled to run in individual topic-driven issues, the easier it will be to meet deadlines. It's doubtful that a small independent newspaper of this type (done without the grants that seem to get thrown at such liberal endeavors) would be able to afford investigative reporters.