The American Spectator

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: /p> p>I agree with your assessment. The Era of the Big Tent is over. The Big Tent requires "moderation," i.e. compromising conservative principles to elect what we hope is a conservative president. Conservatives should bolt the GOP and form a party based on, well, principles. True, it's going to be a smaller tent. At least we would return to a two-party system. (In fact, I'd like to see many parties on both ends of the political spectrum.) And so what if we don't capture the presidency? If we can persuade enough conservative Democrats to abandon their party, we might achieve a kind of parliamentary voting block sufficient to make life miserable for the (thanks Michael Savage) Demicans and Republicrats -- and their president. If the new party's legislators eventually succumb to the pleasures of Beltway approbation and legal (and some illegal) bribery like the current bunch, we vote them out or break away yet again. br> -- Terry Robb br> Columbia, Missouri /p>

As a resident of Texas, I'm not surprised by W. He is a big government guy, just like his dad. Who can forget his attack on conservatism with the politically correct slogan "compassionate conservative"? That slogan to me was as infuriating as Clintons "we didn't pay our fair share" class warfare attack. I still consider Reagan's greatest mistake the choice of George Sr. as VP. George Sr. is a great guy but he is a big government guy.

p>I always thought Cheney was a conservative, but you have to look at where he came from. Chief of Staff for Gerald Ford? We were hoodwinked. br> -- unsigned /p>

The legendary money manager Peter Lynch was fond of noting that most Americans spend more time planning their next vacation than they do planning their financial futures. I would add that most Americans spend even less time, virtually none, actually examining the voting records of their senators and congressmen and comparing those records to the politicians' campaign promises and, more importantly, to the voter's own wishes. Yet this is not hard to do, nor does it take a great deal of time -- as elections draw nearer there are scads of sources for this information, from local newspapers to hundreds if not thousands of websites.

So many issues these days, so many votes in Congress, have major, gargantuan implications for both our near-term and long-term future: spending bills laden with obscene levels of pork; decisions on development of domestic energy sources; further expansion of entitlement programs; immigration, to name just a few. If you don't know specifically where your guys stand on these matters, and more importantly how they have acted to either advance or defeat them, then in good conscience you should find out before you vote.

Do your homework, assay the record in total (recognizing that sometimes everybody has to go along to get along), and if the record does not match up pretty well with what you want and what you thought you were getting, well then off with his or head, and let the chips fall where they may, so-called party "loyalty" be damned.

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