Somehow, I don’t think there is anything accidental in your comment.

Jake

Cliché it is.

In the US, there are, granted, social conservatives, but radical activist megachurch evangelicalism is anything but a conservative form of Christianity. It is radical, new and deplorable. It bears no relationship to the small church that binds a locality together on a personal level of Christian fellowship.

Since Nixon, the GOP has been less economically conservative than the Dems. Starting from Nixon, the GOP has, on average, run bigger deficits and produced less GDP growth than the Dems. Growing a financial sector from 10% of the economy to 40% was not a conservative move, whatever adjective the movers applied to themselves. So-called economic conservatives in the US are anything but. Wall Street dynamism and creativity has been adventurism, not conservatism, with predictable results.

But all that dissonance is nothing compared to the oxymoron that is national security conservatism – GOP style. What is remotely conservative about false pretexts for groundless invasions recklessly pursued – and resorting to torture to justify them ex post facto? You are right, Daniel, to choose this as the GOP’s greatest betrayal of conservatism.

There are dwindlingly few true US conservatives and by now they are as likely to be voting Dem as GOP.

The most conservative critique of Obama is coming from the “left” of his party – from those concerned to uphold the constitution and the rule of law who are alarmed with his partial adherence to Cheneyesque notions of executive power and secrecy.

Conservatism has essence and had forms. The GOP commandeered the forms and lost the essence. Technology and globalization call for new forms. Now conservatives have to rediscover the essence before even contemplating the forms.

Why re-invent the wheel? As Specter found out, and as the Senator’s from Maine no doubt will as well, there is little reason to invest in an independent candidacy when you can just switch to the other side an avail yourselves of its resources. “Moderate” Republicans and Democrats always talk about their independence while on the campaign trail, but none of them are delirious enough to forgo all the advantages of organization, money, and manpower that comes with being a candidate of a major party.

The only way I could see such a situation of a new party forming is if a large enough segment of various Republican state parties abandon a caucus to form a new centrist coalition. The only problem is theres no especially good rationale for that with Democrats so obviously willing to take on just about anybody. I’m comfortable with the idea that the Democrat’s are becoming the equivalent of Japan’s LDP, a monster party whose internal dynamics will be far more salient than what goes on outside.

http://modernwhig.org/issues.html

The fact that McCain seemed wholy incompetent at economic issues, floundering about like an amateur, simply poured salt on the wound. And the continuing Republican emphasis on economics only shows them at their weakest, since complex economics issues have never been their strong suit, the tax-cut mantra being exhibit number one. The reason the GOP tends to remain defensive on the wars and foreign policy is that they feel that if they admit to being wrong there too, they really have no reason to exist. Rather than simply fold up the tent and go home, they cling to the illusion that they can just bluff their way through these failures, and at some point people will think they are actually credible on national security at least. The idea that they actually have to come up with a whole new foreign policy agenda is simply too much for them to handle, or risk.

The best way for conservatives to be heard in government, I think, is to decouple conservative support from the GOP. There are more than a few Democrats that have conservative tendencies, and many GOP members to espouse outright neo-liberalism. There’s no good reason for conservatives of any stripe to restrict their efforts to solely the GOP, especially when the GOP is so despised as it is now.

I like to point to the (somewhat meager) success of the gun lobby. Every serious Democratic presidential candidate since 2000 at least pays lip service to gun rights, and they all avoid making gun rights a central campaign issue like the plague. The difference between the Democratic party of 1992 and the Democratic party of 2009 when it comes to gun rights is like night and day (notwithstanding Attorney Generals flying off the hook at press conferences), and it is the result of gun owners and lobbyists opening up efforts toward Democratic lawmakers and organizations. If conservatives mimic this, I think it would serve the cause greatly.

I think you are supporting Daniel’s point, not refuting it, by your invocation of “everyone I know” and the tea parties. This is exactly the sort of cocoon he’s referring to in the piece, and illustrates a perspective largely out of touch with what the majority of the country believes are the GOP’s failings.

I don’t go quite as far as Daniel in blaming it exclusively on foreign policy for many of the same reasons others above state, but also due to the manifest incompetence of the Bush White House & GOP Congress on issues like NCLB and Katrina.

But “spending” as an abstract issue continues to be a loser with voters. Spending on unpopular wars, subsidies to large corporations, and failed education or health care policies is unpopular, but you can’t logically extend that to all government spending.

There, that statement right there is why the Republican brand in bankrupt. That statements glosses over what those reasons lead to. They have led to hundreds of thousands of human beings killed, maimed, displaced and tortured, and for what? Cold hard cash, the sort of cash the Bush family generates with it alliance with the House of Saud.

Those reasons have nothing to do with ethical, responsible actions taken in the best interests of not only our nation, but other nations as well. They are reasons to make money, nothing more nothing less. You don’t hear one respectable Republican leader calling for investment in alternative fuels technology, instead they stand behind an idiot like Palin and chant “drill baby drill.”

You don’t hear one respectable Republican leader calling for an end to warrantless wiretapping, the end of the use of torture, a return to diligent fiscal oversight that protects Main Street from Wall Street.

You don’t hear one respectable Republican leader bucking the system and calling for deep and meaningful,change to our woefully unfair and inadequate health care system that treats illness as just one more commodity to be bought and sold and may the best or the most healthy man win.

Instead, you get these clown car tea parties in which a bunch of willfully ignorant Limbaugh and Hannity listeners pretend they’re shocked, shocked I say, that Americans pay taxes and those tax monies are wasted, stolen or misused.

From that crowd of intellectual infants you also get statements such as this gem Few mention the Iraq war other than the principled libertarian friends I have.

As grandma always said, show me who your friends are and I’ll show you who you are. Maybe it’s time you found some new friends, hell, even a liberal Dem like me would buy you a beer.

The idea that protecting the bank accounts of this nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations is vastly more important than the lives of our fellow human beings is the only idea that Republicans bring to the table. But somehow, we all know it’s Barney Franks fault.

The foreign policy issues are a little more complicated. There have always co-existed a Nixon-Kissinger/Snowcroft policy alongside a muscular, moralistic Wilsonian / Neocon policy for Reagan and GW Bush. The two aren’t incompatible but have their differences when the realpolitic – Wilson paradigms clash. I am not sure how you would flesh out a policy of restraint or “humility”? If you are arguing that there are limits to what’s feasible given time, people resourcing limits, and budgets, that’s one reasonable input, among others, to consider. But the GOP cannot be isolationist anymore. The world’s too global. It would also have a hard time standing with a morally neutral realpoitik approach. The Bush administration did not make effective use of “soft power”. But that doesn’t mean I’d throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There were sound, very long term strategic reasons why the Iraq endeavor was worth doing. The alternative of burying one’s head in the sand about the changes of the Middle East, and leaving it alone, are not good in the long term. The idea of go get’em in Afghanistan cuz their the ones who got us, is not compelling to me. I actually see far less strategic rationale for Afghanistan than for Iraq and mustering up a coherent Iran and Israel/Palestinian strategy. Frankly, I’d be focusing much more on Pakistan right now than Afghanistan. Afghanistan seems more in line with our want for revenge. But it’s not an overall key pillar of future geopolitics. I’d also focus on China and Russia policy more.

I’d need to know exactly what a humble policy is in more detail, beyond just simple assertions implying maybe we should talk more or be nicer to our allies. Certainly there are limits to What America can do. So why aren’t we focusing more resources elsewhere rather than in Afghanistan?
http://www.rightreturn.blogspot.com

Recall macroeconomic conditions in early to mid-2005 through November 2006: not outstanding, but pretty solid, but Bush’s approval rating, and the Dem vs. Rep generic ballot were on a downward slope all through 2005 & 2006. Clearly something other than the “it’s the economy stupid” was going on during that time frame. Of course, the economic slide in 2007-2008 sealed the deal as far as the 2008 election was concerned. I would agree that whatever the outcome in Iraq and Af-Pak, if the economy is still on the skids in 2012 Obama will have a very difficult time getting elected.

The problem is lack of middle and upper middle class jobs creation since 2000 due to GOP support for business’ unrestrained access to cheap labor involving offshore outsourcing and Illegals/open borders, and the Democrats’ Communism of government/public sector control of the private sector. Both contribute to job loss forcing the majority into giving up the “American Dream” tossing them into survival mode depending on government.

We now have a President wanting people government dependent as it empowers him to re-engineer America into his redistributionist Communist vision of “spreading the wealth around.”

Bill

Nice analysis. I also think this Bush admin. reckless neocon adventurism on foreign policy, embodied by the disaster in Iraq, is the “elephant in the room” that gopers refuse to acknowledge.

It is patently obvious. Shills and sycophants for Bush foreign policy refuse to come to terms with this, and to the extent the national gop refuses to accept the horrendous blunders of Bush foreign policy, “papering over” this noxious neocon philosphy, and pretending the fault for gop losses are elsewhere, the party will continue to be irrelevant to most Americans.

Right now the Republicans are saying freedom is bad (gay marriage), crime is good (torture), and we need to subsidize the rich (taxes). How did we get to this?

Obama’s popularity has increased since his election, not because he is doing a good job, because the only alternative out there is the Republicans. And the Republicans are loathsome. The loathsomeness is primarily the social conservatives. Church goers are the ones who think torture is good and that it is governments job to manage other peoples lives. Until the Republicans can Sista Soulja their base, they are going to continue collapsing.