Some bloggers are threatening the “Fred or nobody” crew with the woodshed. Fine. I’m not in that group, but I can understand where they’re coming from because there are two GOP candidates I will not vote for under any circumstances. With Fred Thompson’s exit from the race, I’m a conservative without a candidate. Fred’s exit makes it a two-man race for me. I’m giving Rudy and Romney a second look, but I decided quite a while back that I will vote Democratic before I vote for McCain or Huckabee. (If we’re going to have a liberal* in the White House, let the Dems take the blame!)
I’d be very interested in learning exactly how the “woodshed” crew intends to conserve conservatism. It isn’t going to get done by electing the likes of McCain and Huckabee, and Rudy and Romney seem better, but not by much. George Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” is neither. And I write that as someone who was much more supportive of that concept when he was running for office, and as someone who supports the idea that we need some kind of welfare system. But he’s expanded government beyond even many Democrat’s expectations. Had a Democratic president proposed that Medicare expansion, it never would have gotten through Congress. We don’t need more of the same from the next president. More to the point, our children don’t need it.
Right now it’s all about definitions, and now is the appropriate time to conduct the fight to define both conservatism and what it means to be a Republican. I’ve spent the last fifteen years watching my party follow the Democrats further and further left. So before we have that little trip to the woodshed, how about you folks explaining either why conservatism should be abandoned, why people who espouse massive government expansion and other liberal ideas qualify as conservatives, or how you think we can get back to conservatism while electing those same people?
[*Added: While each has a redeeming quality or two, they are actively liberal on issues I care about, specifically including big government, judges, illegal immigration, global warming and the war.]
The Anchoress is off base and I wrote two posts so far countering McCainites .
Rudy is a lot more conservative than one might think if you look at his years at the helm of New York City. What would you call a man who imposed morality and virtue on an entire city? That is the definition of a republican (small r) and a conservative.
P.S.
Love the Mac OS X theme
It’s fashionable to pile on right now – especially people who aren’t conservative – and tell conservatives what to do. I don’t know why they’re doing it or why anyone is listening, because this sort of debate is what the primaries are for.
The problem is that the GOP has not been conservative for a long time. Honestly, I think it’s getting to be third-party time – even if a third party can’t win, it could drag the GOP back to the right.
Funny thing about the theme – I’ve never owned a Mac.