[Sloth]

If the Republicans have more RINOs than the Democrats have DINOs the Republican agenda prevails. If the Democrats have more DINOs than the Republicans have RINOs the Democrat agenda prevails.

That is simply false. How many DINOs can you name in the U.S. Senate (and you're going to have to prove to me that Webb is one)?

Also, the most recent presidential election proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you do not have to nominate a moderate or even likeable candidate to be electable. Kerry is an out-of touch Massachusetts rich guy with a crazy foreign wife, an admitted war criminal who actually *ran* on his 4-month military record (that takes nerve), and about as far left as anybody in the Senate, and he STILL almost pulled it off.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If the Republicans have more RINOs than the Democrats have DINOs the Republican agenda prevails. If the Democrats have more DINOs than the Republicans have RINOs the Democrat agenda prevails.

That is simply false. How many DINOs can you name in the U.S. Senate (and you're going to have to prove to me that Webb is one)?

Also, the most recent presidential election proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you do not have to nominate a moderate or even likeable candidate to be electable. Kerry is an out-of touch Massachusetts rich guy with a crazy foreign wife, an admitted war criminal who actually *ran* on his 4-month military record (that takes nerve), and about as far left as anybody in the Senate, and he STILL almost pulled it off.

I have to believe you have a point. To me the question is never whether the Republican is to the right of Ronald Reagan - that has never happened, and he won easily - the crucial issue is whether the Republican can handle the pressure from "objective" journalism.

Dispose, first of all, of the notion that journalism is divided. If anyone claims that journalism is objective, that implies that journalism is unified - in the same way that the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are unified, in that they agree on the umpires and all the other American League business that they get together on. The Yankees and the Red Sox only compete within curcumscribed boundaries. And ABC News only competes with The New York Times or CBS News within specific boundaries.

The claim of objectivity of all journalism implies that the reporter from ABC will not say that the reporter from CBS isn't objective, no matter what. It doesn't matter if CBS promotes obvious crude forgeries, ABC will never compete with CBS on grounds of reliability. It simply isn't done.

And dispose of the claim that journalism is objective or conservative. Journalism features bad news, and that ingrained perspective inherently criticizes the people who are responsible for getting things done. Farmers put alar on apples, oil companies pollute and charge too much, police are brutal and ineffective, soldiers torture prisoners and the DoD is too expensive and not able to suppress all violence in Iraq. Everything that naturally makes a "great story" for journalism also is fodder for anticapitalist, antivalor Democrats.

The challenge faced by a conservative presidential candidate is to represent the people who actually do things - prominently including white men - and defeat the party of criticism and second guessing of the middle class - IOW, the party of journalism. The reason that journalism is left-wing is painfully obvious - leftism is simply whatever plays into the predelictions of journalism the best.