Not really. And welcome to the fold ;)
It ids my firm belief that people massively overcomplicate ‘conservatism’. The problem is that they don’t do so with the ‘best of intentions.’
Case in point. The last election, and certainly in 10, [ep[le calling themselves ‘conservative’ completely broke from any accepted and long held ‘definition’ of what it has ALWAYS meant to be conservative.
Suddenly ‘conservatism’ included things like support for candidates that were AGAINST border fencing, Support for candidates hiring hardcore RINOS with long records of ‘moderate Republicanism’ to run their campaigns. Support for the most liberal Republican to the point that ‘fellow conservatives’ were called traitors to their country and worse.
Candidates of proven conservatism abandoned and mocked based on an MSM/Lib witch hunt and driven out of the race.
Palin trashed on conservative sites to the same level and WITH THE SAME LANGUAGE used by and on MSM/Liberal sites.
And my absolute favorite, we were told long and loud by these ‘conservatives’ that winning was the only thing that mattered and ‘purists’ who stuck to their ‘conservative’ principles were idiots for doing so.
(As an aside, since they considered purity bad, they by default have to believe it’s opposite, CORRUPTION, was good.)
Now.
Can any thinking, logical and rational person honestly call any/all of the above ‘conservative?’
As I have said to many deaf ears here (those described above) one believes in something, or they believe in nothing. And when that belief is somehow bad, well, you can see where this is going.
The primary problem the conservative movement has is a lack of cohesion. They DO have the big tent Republicanism approach and fear calling a spade a spade.
Reagan and many greats before him taught that a party cannot be all things to all people. But if people claiming the mantle of conservatism do not inject themselves with some hated ‘purity’, we/are done.
For new converts, they are truly welcome and no one expects them to become Reagan clones overnight. Sure these things take time and lifelong beliefs cannot just POOF! change. But for those who supposedly HAVE been on this side of the fence a while, there is NO EXCUSE FOR THE CRAP WE ARE NOW GOING THROUGH.
They need to fold their big tent BS and embrace the GOP openly.
A house divided cannot stand.
/rant 2 ;)
I looked over the senate candidates this past election and sent my nickel to a couple including my own "macaca" Allen and Akin. I don't expect perfection from an R candidate any more than from myself and I do not accept that winning takes precedence over values and principles. That's also the good thing about losing this time, because the party won't be stuck with "winners" like Romney (unless we let him stay around).