I think you’re probably right about us not being too far apart. I think once we get a Standard Conservative Party going, you’ll realize it was not nearly as scary as you had thought (Kind of like rappelling off a cliff…the first two steps are ULP! but after that its just pure pleasure.)

There are no doubt ways in which we can address your concerns in the framework of a Conservative mindset. And you can help keep us honest.

At times, there may be two roads, and both are fine to the Conservatives, but one is strongly preffered by one of the many groups of Moderates, and we the larger group, should naturally defer to the other group in such a case (I often do this with my wife.)

And there may be bargains to be struck. I’d be willing to talk to Libertarians about Drugs, forex.
1. I doubt any Conservative is that enthused by SWAT team raids on marijuana dealers based on druggie informants (specially considering the number of innocent joes who got their doors kicked in because the SWAT team hit next door or the informant was lying.)
2. We could talk about Medical Marijuana.

But we do this in the context of Libertarians throwing strong support for Pro-life. The Libertarians make the arguement for Pro-life, and others merely suggest that Federalism is the solution. The Conservatives push for an amendment, and for federalism.

Now, on #1, I’m against that, but we do have to prioritize our issues. If the Tarians come on board, then we have good reason to raise this issue from say #30 to oh, #12 in importance. If some form of serious improvement like Federalism or an Amendment passes for Pro-life, then the Conservatives promise to come back and support Medical M.

Deals on sticky issues like that can be worked out. But yeah, much of the divisiveness is unneccessary. Go with Standard Conservatism, and most parties are going to be reasonably happy.

(And that’s me trying to be a Happy Warrior. I’m not sure I succeeded.)

Yes, I’ve read it. We certainly could use less talk about the Center. There’s been too much already. The use of the term ‘Middle’ might be better as it might denote more of the shifting back and forth nature of the undecided voters. I’m not sure we can totally do away with such a term, but de-emphasizing it is a good idea.

As to your second point–Absolutely. Be not ashamed.

I think that Sarah could have won, but I think it would have been the most insane media frothing at the mouth circus you can imagine. If you can imagine a new anchor spitting on her in an interview on live TV that is. I think the media would have totally lost touch with decency, and at least one of them might try to punch her in public. That is the firestorm she would have had to walk through. Take what she sufferred, and multiply it by at least two, and probably four. My prediction boggles my own mind, but it seems logical. Maybe there is some tipping point where they back off for some reason I’m not seeing. But yeah, I’m suggesting behavior that would get some peple committed to mental institutions as deranged.

Which would have destroyed the media.

As to the Dems winning, hmm, its more complicated there. Bill Clinton, in many ways, was fairly centrist, I think (Partially, he was forced to be so by Gingrich). The problem for the Dems is that this is a center-right country, and they are a center-left to far left party. However, there is probably going to be a lot of really dissapointed Dems no matter what Obama does because he’s made too many promises—or so I hear.

I think that trying to educate people through the MSM and colleges may be a bad idea. With confidence, you can scare the MSM into pretending to try to be fair. But ultimately, I think we have to create a set of parrallel institutions to replace the corrupted ones. Certain institutions like the R party are not that badly corrupted yet. Others, well, they need a competitor to steal their sunlight. MSM, many colleges, and Hollywood are my candidates for the brush fire after we plant another orchard.

One way to help replace the MSM is with bloggers. Glenn Reynolds has noted repeatedly that ‘hard news’ is the killer app for the MSM, but they don’t want to do that unglamorous and difficult job. A few years back, he also supported an initiative for creating more local area blogs that you could see as a way to replace newspapers. Of course, Craigslist is supposed to be sucking up a lot of newspapers add revenue from job listings, I think, or something like that.

I’m a SF/F writer, so I’d like to see some Conservative support for writers, but not only writers, bloggers, and other people. The laborer is worthy of his hire. Nurture some guys with fire and a bit of talent, and the right views….offer prizes and fellowships, and small online magazines, and build the next generation of talent. Now a lot of this is already happening in the Blogs. A lot of good writers are learning to be better writers.

Let me add, although I am no kind of poet, except a very bad one, that I see poetry as a probably moribund field that is waiting for some angels to bless it, and recreate a brand new poetry for Conservatives. Liberals create literary movements as a tool for their goals. We could turn the next generation into a bunch of poetry quoters, and the whole mindset of the field could be informed by Conservative ideals. Liberals would naturally fight back, but they would be out of their element because we had created the foundation, the ‘paradigm’.

Ditto, if and when someone writes a piece about Hillary Clinton spending too much on a dress, I hope that I willl be today, mature enough to laugh at the silliness. People in high places spend a lot on clothes. Its the way the world is.

In your next paragraph, you deal with much that I might call “Inside the Beltwayism”.

With Corporate Bailouts and Globalization….If I see a problem with what Business is doing, I’m tempted to look for the prior government hand that set-up the bad situation in the first place.
There are several rules of thumb to keep in mind:
1. An active government favors the rich (who can afford lawyers to lobby for special breaks).
2. A lot of CEO’s are not free marketeers. They tell the workers…your wages are not going up, its the free market….meanwhile they support illegal immigration. They tell someone….free market…you lost, get over it…..but if they lose…its time for a gov’t handout.

I have doubts that several hundred million dollar salaries are justified by the free market. I suspect there is some tomfoolery and deck-rigging cheating going on. Its an excellent point that we might as well outsource corporate CEO’s as well.

A lot of businessmen believe in the Divine Right of Business to Always Make a Profit (even when they are complete idiots.)

The Conservative position is to be for Free Markets, to accept Profit and Loss, businees formation and great growth and bankruptcy for the unlucky, the weak, the silly, the piggish, the thuggish….etc., etc.. The Conservative is neither pro-worker, nor pro-business.

Calvin Coolidge is supposed to have explained that nine out of ten people who came to him wanted something they should not have, and if you kept your mouth shut, they eventually went away. That’s Mr. Business is great Republican President.

So, I’m for Free Trade even though it hurts in the short run. However, I find it curious that its always ‘us’ that has to sacrifice, while ‘them’ don’t….

However, there are numerous reasons why the Republicans lost. #1 The voters did not vote for them. Yes, I know it’s simplistic, but it goes to the crux of the subject. The Republican party leadership needs to stop asking each other (or listening to the biased talking-heads on why the vote didn’t turn out for them. They need to find out WHY they are losing their appeal to the everyday people. What was it of the Republican platforms that the people liked and what did they not like.

IMO the reasons why are very simple, and go beyond labels of Conservative, Moderate or Liberal. McCain was right when he said that Washington has changed the Republicans. He neglected to realize that it has changed him as well. Just as with the Democratic Party the Republican leadership has grown into one that mostly represents the policies of their own party elite and the Limousine class. Republicans have aligned themselves with a select group of globalist social planners that is totally out of touch with the party’s base voters. If the leadership really wants to recover and reverse the trend, they had better get their heads out of the butts and start thinking about what their voter’s are concerned about.

1) Corporate Bail-outs. The people are royally pissed at this and for good reason. While some may get some token aid or support when they get in financial straights, The rest of us are usually on our own. When wealthy executives are holding their hands out, it just strikes the average person as unfairness. Especially when considering how executive pay compensation has far out-paced the wages of nearly every other worker (who’s wages have not kept pace with inflation. comparative with 40 to 50 years ago.)

2) Illegal immigration. The American public are overwhelmingly against illegal immigration and amnesty, while the Washington crowd is overwhelmingly for it. Here we all have to put up with all kinds of crap entering airports and flying state to state, while the Feds put all of us at risk by not securing the boarders.

3) “Globalization” of manufacturing. To the average American, what this really means is that factories are closed and moved overseas and their towns and family members lose the jobs. (Hell, with some companies, the only employees left in America are sales-staff and the executives. I would bet they looked, they could save more money by hiring executives overseas who will manage the companies for less pay and perks. )

4) To use a phrase by Bill O’Reilly; “The Culture War.” Destruction and demeaning the importance of families, the tramping on of traditions, and the creation of an economy that requires both parents to work. As a result, or children are raised by strangers because Mom & Dad don’t have time to raise them. Meanwhile their own family values and traditions are discounted by educators who it seems are too busy indoctrinating our kids, rather than teaching them what they need to know. (It was disgusting to me to hear Biased Media-whores denigrate Palin and consider her unelectable for being a “Christian.” They couldn’t get away with that bigotry if she was of the Jewish faith.) Republicans in all levels of government have not stood their ground well enough to staunch Democratic erosion.

5) All Government is too damn big, too expensive, too powerful, and too ineffective. It is also more concerned with regulating and controlling the people than business or itself. The people need the government to get off their backs and to quit incrementally restricting and eroding our rights. American government today is marching headlong to a big-brother society to rival the communist Chinese and old USSR in it’s telling us what we can and can do. They are supposed to be our servants not the other way around.

What are needed in the Republican party are reformers like Palin. We need STATESMEN not Politicians.

I think we don’t need to be offended and reactive. We need to pursue the Happy Warrior course, and say “Of course, I’m a Christian. Its the logical choice.” and say it with enthusiasm.

========

A lot of those problems were the result of RINOism and Inside the Beltwayism. The financial crisis was, as I understand, the result of giving people loans they shouldn’t have. We could have more loudly fought against that. We could have eschewed the culture of corruption more enthusiastically.

We chose to put ourselves in a bad situation, and then we found ourselves behind the eight ball.

Yeah, the media was absolutely in the tank for Obama. But we know that whoever is put up by the R’s will be savaged. We know this like we know the Law of Gravity. So we didn’t foresee that the MSM would utterly forsake honor, still we knew it would be at least very bad. So what did we do to prepare for this? What could we have done, and why didn’t we?

Mike Huckabee could probably out debate Obama on sheer style and wit. Rudy Guiliani could have just taken Obama’s head off and used it for a football. Mitt Romney could have just conducted an executive level seminar for the not particularly bright student facing him. Instead, we chose the most RINO and least capable of all candidates. Why? Well, one reason was that we let Dems vote in R primaries. Another reason was that the RINOs desperately wanted their candidate, and with what I understand, front-loaded with Liberal states voting first, and Dems crossover and the support of the MSM, and ferocious RINO pushing, we got McCain.

RINOs have a tendency to pick bad candidates. I’m not sure why, but I do know it seems to happen. Its like they’re embarrassed to be conservatives or something.

===========

A 100% conservative would be great! But, once you get there or somewhere close, you have to have the Happy Warrior. You have to have someone who can reach out, and explain to the Moderates and the Independents, and a few Democrats that what ails them has a Conservative cure.

===========

The long list of bad things going against McCain emphasizes one point. This is a Conservative nation. Only after the Republican Party deliberately eschewed principle, and really made a mess of things in many, many ways, and with tons of bad news, did Obama have a chance to win. In other words, with a Happy Warrior Conservative, we could be looking at something closer to a 60% victory next time.

===============

Step One: Fix the blame on those who caused the problem.
Step Two: Punish the wicked, and elevate the righteous.
Step Three….

No. In ways, you’re right. We should start with the Happy Warrior stuff as soon as we can. Now as you can see with my reply to Craig, I’m already moving in that direction. But the Happy Warrior should be able to fight against his in-party rivals as well, and quite effectively.

I have answered you but my comments keeps getting stuck either in spam or moderation… so look at comment # 16 for my answer if it ever gets out of moderation.

I loved Governor Palin, but somehow, I think this guy is a “McBerry Revolution”.

http://draftraymcberrygeorgiagovernor2010.blogspot.com/

Here’s a quote regarding Governor Palin and how she was portrayed: “far right Bible-thumping conservative hillbilly nut”.

Even your terminology somehow states that we, as Christians, have something to be ashamed of.

You aren’t confusing me for Kathleen Parker, are you? Nowhere did I attack Christian conservatives in this post.

@Tennwriter:

However, Moderates are frequently low-information voters, and they are swayable.

Depends on what you mean by “moderates”. I’m talking about center-right conservatives who aren’t living on the fringe of far right extremism. Their core beliefs are just as solid to the center right as extremists are in their inflexible brand of conservatism.

But, really, I don’t think we’re really that much in disagreement. My main thrust regarding election loss is that we didn’t have an adequate delivery system, and it has less to do with McCain’s supposed and apparent RINOism (I think he would have been fiscally more responsible than President Bush) than it has to do with having a candidate who can connect on the level of style and charisma. McCain was at a disadvantaged, anchored to 8 years of Bush and the perception of failed policies, the timing of the economic crisis, campaign financing, media fawning on Obama shaping the battle space, and the excitement and novelty of glass ceiling momentum. As Letterman so nightly would point out about McCain, “he’s old”.

McCain was right about the surge; but what sticks out in people’s consciousness is that the original decision to invade Iraq was a mistake and the wrong war. Hence, Obama scores.

If we had our own “Obama/Reagan” candidate with the same kind of charisma and popular appeal, it would have made a difference.

I agree that conservatism doesn’t need to be watered down. I believe the right ideas are conservative ideas. We just need the proper delivery system. It doesn’t mean running someone who is a party purist, oozing 100% conservatism. Rush Limbaugh would never win the presidency. You need someone who can deliver the conservative message with style as well as substance, that attracts people from the center and across the aisle as well as energize the base.

If it had been a “normal election”, things might have been different. But this year, the Democrats ran a “super” candidate. Someone who, no matter what you think of him, energized voters like no other candidate.

@Tennwriter:

I’ve long said, RINOs lose, Conservatives with a smile win.

That sounds like an apples and oranges comparison. This talk about “happy conservative warrior” sounds misplaced, as mostly what I see are “angry-as-hell-we’re-not-going-to-take-it-anymore” conservatives, ranting about the GOP and whining about the RINOS in their midst.

FIRST:
We have to ban the word CENTER in politic that means nothing. Do not be afraid of the word RIGHT and LEFT. Nobody here is talking about extreme right or extreme left. We are talking about RIGHT and LEFT.

SECOND:
Be sure that people will understand that you will be governing at RIGHT and not at the CENTER. They want you to govern at RIGHT, with the values of Republicans; this is why they vote for you. If you make a campaign saying you will govern at the Center, then why should they vote for you? No reason. That was McCain’s error. Sarah would have succeeded because it was clear that she wanted to govern at right. Same for the Democrats, they expect them to govern at left, not at the center. If they say they will govern at the center, they will not vote for them. Why do you think Obama won? Because he promised them to govern at left. But he will break his promises and people will feel like they have been taken for suckers and will not like it and probably wont vote for them next time around.

There are many more things that could be done, like educating people, thru MSM and colleges… but that would be hard because of all the corruption. I think if you just start by explaining RIGHT and LEFT, that would be a good start… and of course to ban the stupid word CENTER from your vocabulary who confuses everyone. By doing so, people would start to understand the differences between the Republicans and the Democrats. Now, they do not see it. For them, both Parties are alike… they just vote for the guy that has the most charisma, which of course is the most stupid thing someone can do.

I’ve long said, RINOs lose, Conservatives with a smile win. You have to be bold, and attack. Offer a vision of a better future, and without malice rebuke your opponent (unless they way cross the line, and then let them have it with both barrels).

There have been a lot of problems in the R party, but most are traceable to RINOism. They are symptoms of a greater malady.

So, we need ot move past this point. Its clear that Conservatism is not the problem. Now, how do we fix the Republican Party? The fundamental solution is to elevate Standard Conservatives to positions of power, and to run the Party. How do we do that? Good question. You have any ideas?

==================

I agree 100% with you. Republicans should stand by their principles wich is to govern at Right. If they want to govern at Center, too bad for them, they will lose all the Republican votes. Governing in the Center is not governing at all. We do not want Republican to govern at extreme right… we just want them to govern at Right… not at the Center.

This is why Sarah Palin will get all the Republican’s votes, because she is a true Republican. What is your choice on a ballot? Right (Republicans) or Left (Democrats)… there is no Center on a ballot. Center do not exist in politic.

The assault on Christians is the real problem.

The portrayal of faith in the Bible, worship of God, and traditional values as being objects worthy of hate is the real problem.

Even your terminology somehow states that we, as Christians, have something to be ashamed of. Please allow me to set the record straight: We’re not ashamed. Our Christian faith makes us fine and upstanding people of character and our Christianity is POSITIVE and an ATTRIBUTE and we seek to be more and more Christian because it’s so positive a transformation. The hate being poured out at us, the contempt, is uncalled for and the worst sort of hate.

What we need is a strong Christian who will stand up and face this religious hate instead of taking it. Palin was muzzled. She’s trying to just be nice, now, and continue to show that these characterizations are unfair. It’s going to take more than that. It’s going to take someone squarely addressing the hate and not taking it and being direct about it rather than avoidant. And if things don’t become respectful but rather “heat up” after being directly addressed by a Conservative Christian candidate – we’ve got Hitler’s Germany on our hands in the USA.

That’s not the fault of the Christian Conservatives. That’s the fault of the MSM and the Democrats – that National Socialist Party – those Nazis.

Grace.

I think you’re planting assumptions. Of course, if only the purists vote for the R brand, then we’re toast. No one, and I repeat, no one in the base wants that. However, Moderates are frequently low-information voters, and they are swayable.

Now who sways them better?
A. I’m a moderate just like you.
==No you’re not. Your moderate ideas are weird. I’m a real moderate.
B. Um, we’re kinda like the Dems, but just not so insane.
==You sound, uh, not enthused. I think I’ll take the Dems, at least they have conviction.
C. Join the Conservative Movement, have fun, make the world a better place!
==Cool. Sign me up.

People are not going to follow an uncertain trumpet.

I’m not exactly narrowly focused. We need full-bore Standard Conservatism (good on values, national defense, and fiscal responsibility.) We need Happy Warriors and Learned Sages and Brave/Funny Artists to promote it. We need to attack on all fronts.

The preceding poster is right about the media. We need a new media structure to replace the hopelessly corrupted MSM. But, I’m not searching for a single silver bullet. I want a broad-based attack with a bright new vision for the future. So media, yes, border fence, yes, anti-bailout, yes, stop vacuuming out kids’ brains, &^%*&^& yes….

Jerry Pournelle pointed out one problem with the Country Clubbers or as I would say RINOs. The R’s had a poor ground game. He said it was because the CC’s used professionals instead of creating a precinct org like Obama did. And thus you have strategy flowing from beliefs….the elitist distrusts the amateur who operates from belief, and so hires pros with his money, and ends up with a loss because he was not willing to concede that his beliefs should not run the party.

I think you can probably repeat Pournelle’s example all over the Party. A Happy Warrior Conservative would have a more consistent message, and would have probably had the boldness to say ‘forget this noise, if my opponents going to cheat on money, at the least, I can be more aggressive in getting money.’ and one wonders whether a Conservative would agree to public financing in the first place. And it was completely obvious that we needed to attack the MSM full on.

A Confident Conservative who has a coherent belief structure which is clear and logical, one that he is unashamed of, can do such, and succeed.

Gotta run.

If we take your logic to an extreme,

But based upon much of your post, I’m not quite so sure you understand what my position really is. Reread. I’m not talking about diluting the party of conservatism. Neither is Medved, who I oft quote.

You seem narrowly focused on the notion that it was RINOism that was the death of us this election, ignoring all the other factors that came together to make this an election for us to lose (not by a landslide either, and a tighter run campaign with a consistent message might hvae tipped the balance). The campaign finance and media onslaught, as z reiterates, was enormous. So was the appeal of Obama’s image as a glass-ceiling breaker, post-racial, trans-racial candidate who seemed civil, moderate, even-tempered, a great and inspiring orator, willing to reach across the aisle and be the president of all Americans. That was his persona and message.

Never underestimate the power of style over substance.

I’d say Bush #41 lost reelection because he broke his campaign promise, “read my lips…”. Not because of his conservative moderatism.

George Bush #43, the proven liberal conservative (never vetoed a single pork-ladened bill in his first term, expanded government, increased the deficit, increases in education spending, expansion of Medicare, compassionate conservatism with fighting AIDS in Africa, etc) won reelection in 2004. He campaigned in both 2000 and 2004 as wishy-washy on his immigration policy. So why we lost this time around is more complex than simply blame-handing it to “center-right” politics.

Government expansion has been happening for decades under everyone.

Also, John McCain, King of the Moderates….couldn’t hold Peggy Noonan and Chris Buckley.

If Noonan and Buckley felt the need to “defect”, then they’re part of the problem. If you have a choice between candidate A and candidate B, and candidate A is the one you agree with 60% of the time while candidate B is the one you agree with 8% of the time, the mature adult decision is to go with candidate A. Going candidate C effectively helps the candidate with whom you least agree with.

Buckley seems caught up with the rockstar glass ceiling breaking of Barack; Noonan should have voiced her opposition during the primaries, then rally behind the party nominee in the general.