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CIRCLING THE TOILET
Re: Robert P. Kirchhoefer s Elections Have Consequences:

Another piece of RINO crap, much like Thursday's bouquet to Olympia Snowe (In Defense of Principled Moderates).

Conservatives and patriots would not have been better off with McCain. He would have sold us out to all manners of government interventionism to be bi-partisan, and no Republican opposition would have been forthcoming. As the country comes to know the programs Obama has in mind, there is a building opposition. While Republicans are still in bad odor (and for good reasons, based on their feeding at the trough), people are coming to understand that "hopey changey" is just another expression for the regressive statism that the left always sponsors, and for the celebration of American defeat that the left holds so dear.

Here's what would have happened if McJerk had been elected. The economy would have been just as bad. McCain would have given the left a half loaf. The left would have demanded a full loaf, and continued to pound Republicans, with the media cheering on the "progressives." Republicans would have lost even more seats in 2010.

With all the Obama/Reid/Pelosi nonsense in play, the public revulsion, and the continuing economic crisis, the Republicans have an opportunity to rebuild their brand and support the many grassroots efforts to bring the government under some sort of rational control. After all, if we want to look for systemic risk, look no farther than the White House, the Capitol, and the Fed.

Of course, the Republicans could blow this opportunity, just as they blew the chance to make a real difference once they were ensconced in what they must have thought was permanent power. Look at the sad leadership in the Congress. Look at New York 23. I fear the Republicans still don't get it. I used to think the Republicans were the stupid party. I'm beginning to think they should trade symbols with the Dems. They are as stubborn as a donkey, and getting hit with a two by four doesn't seem to overcome that stubborn belief that people will esteem them as an alternative that stands for nothing.

And that brings me to defending "principled moderates" like Olympia Snowe. Mr. Hillyer, are you out of your mind? It's one thing to pretend to be moderate, as is true of most of the blue dogs. It's another thing to actually vote with the liberals, time and again, and to thereby continue to undermine the battered Republican brand. Sometime you might want to look at the various voting surveys produced by interest groups. The "moderate" Dems always end up with high liberal scores, the "moderate" Republicans always end up with mid to low conservative scores. If the Republican Party doesn't stand for an essentially conservative outlook that its prominent legislators, and presidents, support in most respects, it will continue to lose ground to the party of government. Note that despite all the Dem bluedogs and "moderates," the discussion among Dems is not whether the government should overhaul the American healthcare system, but merely whether now is the time for a "public option." Good grief!

Keep supporting those "moderate" Republican losers, and watch the Republican Party continue to circle the toilet. It's time to bring conservative beliefs to liberal states and districts. The Dems seem able to compete in Republican areas, and without betraying the major interests and messages of their party. When are we going to learn to do the same?
-- Stephen Zierak
Kansas City, Missouri

Of course John McCain would be a better President than Barack Obama. Of course his administration would be very different.

That doesn't make McCain a conservative. Nor change the fact that he continues to do his level best to cut down anyone remotely resembling one, or betraying Republican administrations in hopes of currying favor with the "left-stream" news media.

I voted for Sarah Palin to be Vice-President, knowing that she was the only conservative in the race. It wasn't a lack of conservative votes that did in John McCain. It was his too-foolish-to-believe faith that his friends in the media would be fair to him, it was independent voters switching parties, it was tremendous liberal-voter turnout and not a few illegal votes on the Democrat side that did him in.

Stop blaming conservatives for the faults of others.
-- Lloyd Daub
Greenfield, Wisconsin

HISTORICAL ACCIDENT
Re: W. James Antle III's Third Way:

I would think it inevitable, that conservatives would eventually tire of voting for those who don't believe what they believe, don't support what they support, and don't oppose what they oppose. That conservatives go under the Republican banner is a historical accident...
-- Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida

James Antle III's antipathy to Reagan's Republican Party (Reagan was a Republican first and foremost) and infatuation with groups like Obama's blue lapdogs (who can forget Antle's rhapsodizing over Obamanation Jim Webb) makes him a "conservative" Democrat's love -- one that keeps them in power. Rather than envisioning Hoffman as some far fetched model for third party "conservatives" we should see him as the catalyst for a renewal of the GOP's conservative base. That's why so many establishment Republicans have endorsed Hoffman -- he's one of us unlike either of his opponents.