This will be a fairly quick post tonight. I can tell you're all cheering that one.
One item I read and one I heard are in the spotlight. Yesterday I read a commentary piece by Chuck Muth that basically shows that the GOP infighting continues. So much for the "big tent."
Actually, I'm on Tancredo's side in this one. It is long, long past time to crack down on illegals. Actually it's long, long past time to do a lot of things like cut spending, work on getting ourselves weaned off foreign oil by producing our own, and putting judges on the court who let the legislators do their job. Sometime I'll comment on Harriet Miers, but I really would like to hear the woman speak rather than everyone else assuming she's good/bad for the Supreme Court.
On one side you have the GOP establishment who is in her corner, and on the other you have good conservatives like Michelle Malkin, George Will, and Ann Coulter saying she's a horrible pick. If you follow the Malkin link, there's an audio link to an interview Coulter did with Denver radio host Mike Rosen.
Now that was interesting for two reasons. Ann certainly has some venom stored up for President Bush in her column today. And on this radio interview, she let out the "I" word I was expecting the moonbat left to carry through from the War on Terror and WMD's, yes, "impeach." That, to me, is a bit extreme. Even though there's 45 surefire Democrat votes for it in the Senate, that's not going to happen.
But she did say another thing I thought was very perceptive. As conservatives, we generally see the people we like as candidates shunned by the "establishment" GOP because they're not "electable". "Electable" candidates included Bob Dole in 1996 and George H. W. Bush in 1988-92. On those we batted .333 - great for the bigs, lousy for elections. But the "unelectable" Ronald Reagan went 2 for 2 and only won 49 states when he was reelected (including all of Delmarva.)
So, basically, we need to stick to our guns and not listen to what the establishment would have us believe would be an electable candidate who is a compromise choice. Running hard to the right is the winning way.
I commented on this at theGoldwater's blog a couple weeks back, he had an excellent post called "A Warning to Elected Republicans" that I noted then.
Excellent post. Unfortunately, we conservatives face a problem that is usually the result of the state/local GOP "annointing" a candidate before the primary, hence, before the voters would get their say.
Generally when that is done, the GOP brass goes with the candidate who they feel is more "electable" (read: moderate.)
I can give you an example from my home state of Ohio. There were two candidates for governor in 1998: Bob Taft and Ken Blackwell. Rather than have a primary fight between the two, the Ohio GOP threw their weight behind Bob Taft, the moderate, and nicely asked the conservative Blackwell to fill a vacant spot on the ballot and bide his time as Secretary of State (he was the state treasurer before, but the state GOP had found someone to run there.)
So what happened? Taft succeeded another moderate in George Voinovich, Ohio kept spending money like a drunken sailor, and let onetime surpluses became deficits.
Then 2002 came around, and a guy like me has a choice: re-elect the RINO, or, even worse, put a Democrat in the governor's office. So I held my nose and voted for Taft.
So what happened? Ohio's economy pretty much finished going in the tank, and I'm sitting here in Maryland. And, of course, the mainstream media in most of Ohio will savage a GOP politician no matter how conservative.
And, of course, all the scandal and RINOs moving to the center has Ohio fed up with the GOP just in time for Ken Blackwell to finally have a shot at the governor's office.
So the solution, to me, is to work in the local GOP to let the voters decide who's best for the party. 9 times out of 10 they pick the best (most conservative) person if given a choice.
The other time was keeping Senator Specter in Pennsylvania.
(By the way, don't stop reading at just that article, his blog is generally quite good.)
This is the reason that my blog is the "right-wing" conspiracy, not the "GOP" conspiracy. While I've been a registered Republican since 1986 (and was only a registered Democrat in 1984 to ensure Reagan would get the weakest opponent possible,) I've been known to vote Libertarian and Reform as well. But I feel the best way to get the party to move is from within.
There's more people like me than the "establishment" thinks, and it's very possible 2006 or 2008 will be the time they find that out as it bites them in the ass. When we stay home or withhold our vote for the "electable" candidate, they'll regret blowing the conservative Americans off.
