that the best way to promote conservatism is to support conservatives in the primary and the Republican, no matter how liberal, in the general election.

What they don’t explicitly state, when you click on the “about” button and read the text, is that they expect every commenter here to hold to the same position. That’s exactly what they want and expect but its not explicitly stated.

My own view of the matter, in the past, has been that the best way to promote conservatism is to support conservatives in the primary and the Republican, no matter how liberal, in the general election for every office except for president. Unfortunately, in our system, the president also becomes the head of the party. With that power, the president has influence over who gets what party post and what kind of candidates the party recruits.

In the past, that has resulted in moderates locking out potential conservative candidates in future elections from having access to party funds and support in their runs and has locked conservatives out of leadership spots which are crucial to their development of skills.

Its quite as bad now that organizations like GOPAC has emerged to support conservative candidates when the party has refused to. And there’s non-party organizations like the Heritage Foundation to give potential conservative insiders a place to hone their skills. But it still becomes a problem to some extent every time a moderate/liberal republican becomes president. At the moment we’re still reaping the benefits of party members who matured in Reagan’s presidency and the republican takeover of the House. But string together a couple of decades without a conservative president and it might be another matter.

Redstate would be better off, in my opinion, if they explicitly stated their expectations rather than letting people promote conservatism each in their own way then threaten to ban the people who don’t conform to their unspoken expectation.

But, then, I’m not in charge of anything around here.