President Bush will always have my respect for the great job he did defending our country from terrorists, however, he also held conservatives in contempt when they dared disagree with him on the Meirs nomination, amnesty, the bailout. He did not show the same contempt when libs called him names, mocked him cruelly, incessantly, and picked apart bills he supported that THEY wrote (No Child Left Behind - MR TED KENNEDY). Somewhere along the lines Republicans became convinced that they needed to play nice and reach across the aisle to the hateful liberals, despite the huge thumb they kept jabbing in their eyes.
Nice guys finish last...
Bush always held conservatives in contempt. He showed his hand before his first primary when he dissed Robert Bork. If a Democrat politician had done such a thing he would have been toast. Democrats require a liberal world view before they’ll back someone. Accomplishments mean nothing. They know a liberal believer can be trusted to advance the liberal agenda. This is an evaluation based on reason. The Republican base seems to make evaluations based on emotion. A few phrases like “Jesus is my favorite philosopher” and pictures of a pretty family is all it takes.
As long as conservatives blindly trust the Republican leaders, we will be losers.
The Republican coalition has been country club Republicans (big business) and conservatives. The country clubbers give money to the party and the conservatives are the voters and volunteers. According to a political scientist I know and respect, political party leadership always is an extreme version of their electorate. The Republican leadership has been 100% about providing goodies to business (illegal aliens, prescription drugs, wall street bailout, increased spending on public schools etc.) But more than that country clubbers are social liberals and very secular. They have utter contempt for middle class values. Conservatives have to get it through their heads that the country clubbers hate them. The price of freedom is vigilance and conservatives have failed to look past the rhetoric and evaluate the deeds of the Republican politicians.