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But the self-proclaimed "base" didn't--as they've done since 1992.

Pop quiz time:
What year was the most decisive GOP electoral victory in our lifetimes?
Let me know if you need a hint.

OK, you and your kin are apparently going to vote based on your FEEEEEEEL-INGS.

In other words, y'all are a bunch of liberals.

Liberals or not, do their votes count?

Bush is probably counting on getting more than one vote in exchange for losing yours.

Did you read the article?
Growing frustration over President Bush's immigration plan and lack of fiscal discipline came to a head behind closed doors at last weekend's Republican retreat in Philadelphia.
House lawmakers, stunned by the intensity of their constituents' displeasure at some of Mr. Bush's key domestic policies, gave his political strategist Karl Rove an earful behind closed doors.
< -snip- >
Many House critics of the Bush immigration plan said privately that the proposal was created to win Mr. Bush a larger share of the Hispanic vote in November and to mollify Mexican President Vicente Fox. Mr. Fox has supported relaxed U.S. immigration laws as a means to alleviate economic problems in Mexico.
Mr. Duffy said the president delivered a passionate defense of his immigration plan, telling the Republican caucus that his policy is not a political ploy.
"He said he didn't do it for politics [but] because that's what he believes is good for the country," Mr. Duffy said, adding that Mr. Bush drove his point home by saying, "I'm from Texas and I know this issue."

Well, I'm from California, and the President is dead wrong on Illegals, not only on principle, but on policy and politics as well.
But who needs those stinking votes?

Because the rest of the folks who agree with you, and think as you do, spent a decade slow-rolling the GOP...well, you're going to suffer.

Listen to you. What a coalition-builder.

Quit blaming Bush, and start blaming the folks who talked much, demanded much more, and never delivered anything in return.

Here's a question for your electoral calculus:
If a party has a constuency that can deliver decisive victories when motivated, and yet that party suffers defeats or mixed results when that same constituency is alienated, then isn't that constituency a bellweather for the party's prospects in any given election?

What year was the most decisive GOP electoral victory in our lifetimes?

The "base" was trashing Newt Gingrich and the GOP all the way to the 1994 election, and then took credit for the win that they'd shunned voting for.

Then, in 1995, the "base" refused to send letters of support to their newly-elected Congresscritters during the budget showdown.

Then, in 1996, they threw a public hissy-fit over the GOP "caving in" to Clinton on the budget--the very issue they refused to support the GOP on.

I was there, buddy. I learned in 1994-96 that "true conservatives" are not the "base." The RNC took a while longer to figure it out.

Because the rest of the folks who agree with you, and think as you do, spent a decade slow-rolling the GOP...well, you're going to suffer.

Listen to you. What a coalition-builder.

I'm not interested in building a coalition of the unwilling.

If y'all aren't willing to vote for the GOP--and the record TO DATE says that you aren't--then the GOP isn't willing to waste its resources on your issues.

You're demanding up-front patronage.

Unfortunately, politics doesn't work like that. Politicians want to see the votes BEFORE they stick their necks out.