[Don Myers]

"Don, what percentage of the voting public are hard core conservatives?"

What is it?

[Texasforever]

The last figures I saw was about 25% that are really FR conservatives. Then you have to do the go into what defines a hard core conservative.

The Social Conservatives

the Libertarian conservatives

The fiscal conservatives

the Paleo-conservatives

The Neo-conservatives

The Isolationist conservatives

and so forth. When you look at the various third parties each party is made up of one faction of that spectrum. There is no hope of a "cooalition 3rd party simply because the existing 3rd parties are completely incompatible. The GOP is a coalition party. It has a significant conservative faction, a VERY LARGE moderate faction and a small liberal faction. However, when you look at committee assignments, the conservatives hold the larger share of chairmanships. That is why it is important to suck it up and elect even RINOs to the senate. It is the numbers that count and who chairs the committees. The GOP is now what Reagan wanted it to be, a big tent party truly capable of a governing majority.