[SoothingDave]

You just made my point. What exactly did those left wing wackos who voted for Nader get? Nada. They got Bush in the presidency. Certainly they would rather have seen Gore (as evidenced by all those vote swapping sites at the last minute).

Au Contraire. There is always another day. If the dems had paid attention they might have learned that they have a certain portion of support that demands action on whatever greenie weenie stuff they want.

The GOP has lost seats in the last few Congressional elections, and low turnout by conservatives can be blamed. Does the GOP learn from this that they would have this support if the actually governed in a conservative way? No, they ingore, for example, the vast majorities who want immigration controlled for the pipe dream of turning Hispanic GOP voters from 15 into 20 per cent.

SD

[College Repub]

If they governed in that conservative way they would lose an equal amount of swing voters and liberal republicans so that the net effect would be closer to 0. It's a safer bet to just assume that many of those conservatives will still vote for the R's.

[Paul Ross]

The GOP has lost seats in the last few Congressional elections, and low turnout by conservatives can be blamed. Does the GOP learn from this that they would have this support if the actually governed in a conservative way? No, they ingore, for example, the vast majorities who want immigration controlled for the pipe dream of turning Hispanic GOP voters from 15 into 20 per cent.

You have got it absolutely right. Either these guys are running on low gray-matter octane, or they were never conservative in the slightest degree themselves, or both. I think the latter is the more likely, but a healthy amount of suspicion does center around the first possibility.