I basically agree. I have stopped using the RINO term, since it implies that "Republican" is the same as "conservative."
There are (at least) two factions in the Republican Party - which I think of as Rockefeller Republicans and Goldwater Republicans. While I do have some important disagreements with Goldwater's politics (particularly in his later years), I consider Goldwater, and not Reagan, to be the prototype conservative. The Rockefeller Republicans are not really moderates; they are "big-business" people, globalists, and they do not really care about following the Constitution.
The Rockefeller Republicans have been in control of the Party since 1984, and this includes the current administration.
I'm not convinced, though, that 90% of registered Republicans are "moderates." I believe that most Republicans consider themselves to be "conservatives." The problem is that most people today, particularly the younger voters, don't have a clue about what a conservative is.
Kevmo:
That’s why I say our problem isn’t RINOS, it’s CINOS. ***The problem with calling them CINOs is that they’ll swear up & down that they’re conservative.
And they believe it. I am actually quite pessimistic now. The Bush administration has been a ship-wreck disaster for the Conservative cause. I say this, not because Bush is a conservative (he is not), but because he has been accepted by "conservatives" (CINOS, but also by a lot of real, but short-term oriented, conservatives), and because he is known (incorrectly) as a conservative. Millions of Americans who voted for Bush have since repented of their folly, and since they consider Bush to be a conservative, they are now determined never again to vote for a Conservative. Last November was a wake-up call.
What about the rest of the post?
But they stop short at calling themselves socons — social conservatives. I know they don’t like being called solibs.
So the tension is between socons and wannabe conservatives.
The best name is like the socon one, where each side accepts it. We don’t consider them to be conservatives, and they do. So we need a name they’ll admit to — maybe pragmacons. Principled socons vs. compromising pragmacons.
And to add to that, perhaps we TrueCons wouldn’t really like calling them Pragmacons because it implies Con as part of the name. Maybe we would call them PragmaCINOs or PragmaPubs. I like “UIN Republicans” — they’ll vote for anything with an R in front of it, regardless of what that means to us.
The thing for PragmaCINOs to keep in mind is that this is not a GOP website. It is a social conservative one.
Good post, good thoughtful points. Rockyfeller and Goldwater is very good divider.