While the creation of a third party is not the most enviable of tasks, it may be the only viable option for conservatives. At present, they are essentially a politically inclined and motivated constituency in desperate need of a party. They are a committed group with no leaders to unite them. They are adamantly opposed to the rapid power grab and nationalism of industry, yet they have no votes to stop them. It is not that conservatives ceased to exist over night. They were simply phased out of their own party over the course of the eight years of the Bush presidency and the subsequent McCain debacle. They were cast aside to make way for opportunistic politicians who sacrificed conservatism for the sake of self preservation and political gain. They divided the party into two factions – those who wanted to move the party to the center and those who wanted to align the party with the Religious Right. The Bush administration tried the latter to no avail and the McCain constituency tried the centrist approach. Once the Party was firmly implanted at the all inclusive center it only faced the reality that a “friend to all is a friend to none.” Broadening the Party’s reach by moving to the center only succeeded in alienating conservatives. It gained no seats and advanced no policy. Its sole achievement was creating a party that lacked any real foundation and turned its back on principled leadership.
The Party’s failures since the year 2000 have led to bigger government, bigger deficits, and bigger problems. Our states are becoming defacto agents of federal expansion and the weight of the federal government is becoming increasingly burdensome on each of our daily lives. We are fast approaching the proverbial breaking point. There must be another alternative. It is time for conservatives to once again unite behind the founding documents and the intentions of our Founding Fathers; to force the Republican Party to right the course – and if It will not, then maybe its time to abandon ship. As troubling as this notion may sound to many conservative Republicans, the outcome of doing nothing would be far more painful.
The McCain debacle? He didn’t loose that badly, and really Bush cost him the election more than Obama. Everyone who’s claiming McCain was a disaster is basically saying that some mindless party toad like Romney the robot, would have done better.
What we needed in 08 was the McCain from 2000, but unfortunately McCain had to appeal to the idiot elements of the Republican party to win the primary and then couldn’t win the general election because he had lost the independents. This is why Republicans will have a hard time from now on – the falsely pious will get elected.
The Christian right is such a bunch of rubes. I wish they’d go make their own little Jesus based party and leave those of us who believe in limited government aloneç