Of course if you believe like me that the platform is something that should unite us and give us a common cause to rally around…there are those here that will berate you as a crazy purist and extremist who stand opposed to winning elections since we can’t win without acting like Democrats!

I read the 2008 platform and I find myself saying repeatedly, yes, yes, yes, I agree, yes, that’s right, yes, yes, and so on. I then hear of votes reporting that the GOP cannot stand united against what I see as a prevailing lunacy. I agree we need to form coalitions, we need a positive message and we must be prepared to offer viable alternatives to opposition initatives. But, while this takes place, we also must purge the party of the turncoats. If the GOP has no prevailing core principles and no evaluation of the performance of our candidates and representatives, the party will fail.

I would not expect 100% of the folks commenting on this board to agree with me on everything but if we do not agree on the majority of the platform I do not see how we can say we are members of the same party.

Our platform is a conservative platform. Our party leaders have been acting - save for the past few days - as if the party is not conservative. Perhaps they know something I don’t know.

New democratic candidates and platforms in 2006 and 2008 were far more centrist than those of 2000-2004. The Dems realized they wanted to win, and so they decided that pro-gun, pro-defense, and even pro-life candidates were tolerable in districts where that was the only way to win.

Where I disagree…or more importantly where I think you miss the mark is in to places….

#1 There is nothing new in this…you even acknowledge it in your post…the DLC as formed to do exactly the same thing…but please not…the people they ran to act like conservatives on the campaign trails have been completely and utterly silenced in opposing anything the Democrats do and they are beaten into line by their whips when it comes to floor votes!

#2 and most importantly…the Democrats know they need to run as conservatives to win…while the dumbasses in the Republican leadership can’t get that simple fact through their thick skulls and insist on acting like what the Democrats are running away from….I honest to GOD can’t figure these educated idiots out…they can’t see the elephant tearing through the tent because of their highbrow snobbery!

Are there politicians who would do what you ask? in a word NO…but there are People who DO live that way…they are the once that need to be found and promoted…those that can lead by example and communicate a vision of what it all means!

I don’t know a SoCon who is motivated by a single issue…they are buy and large all dedicated on a set of principles dealing with Morality, life and the impossibility of having a libertine society in the absence of a moral and responsible citizenry! The SoCons I know are fed up with a large and ever more intrusive government inserting itself into family decisions, propagandizing our children and censoring what pastors can or can not say from the puplit.

I don’t know of a single Fiscon who is only committed to cutting spending and limiting government.all the FisCons I know are by and large dedicated to a concept of individual freedom to pursue wealth free of government intervention and fed up with the intrusion of government into every aspect of their financial lives and decisions!

Most of the DefCons and FoPoCons I know are sick of our politicians continuing to weaken us militarily to pay for biger domestic programs and are sick of seeing our leaders selling us our national sovereignty down the river to the UN who is governed by a gaggle of dictators and despots who hate us and see us as an enormous cash cow to be milked for their own gain!

The single issue voter is nothing more than a figment of the appeaser’s imagination and its high time we all realized it!

and by the way…you quote Reagan out of context because he went on to say we couldn’t afford to be a party of pale pastels and those that insisted upon such should be unceremoniously shown the door!

When they finally realized they had to build a coaltion to regain power, they stopped fighting over ideological purity and produced a slate of candidates who appear to be reasonable, non-ideological, and centrist, led by a presidential candidate who did a magnificent job of concealing his core leftist philosophy under a veneer of centrism..

They gave up on ideological purity over the last 4 years? since when?

They’ve run candidates that can speak conservative in red districts but once elected…they tow the party line or else…I don’t know where you’ve been!

You do have a point about the cycle and once people are tired of the excesses of the Democrats…the Republicans will once again win by running as the conservative alternative to the Democrats…but they’ll continue to govern as centrists leaving people to think there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans…and 12 to 16 years from now we’ll see President Chelsea Clinton!

However, I think you’re wrong here. The GOP as a whole hasn’t abandoned Conservatism, I think, even though there have been several planks missing in the individual platforms of our candidates.

Now, I’d also say that some of our candidates — and representatives — have misrepresented themselves as Conservatives (like Lindsey, Huck, etc) — but I don’t think it’s the GOP itself.

Unquestionably, we’re losing our way — but I don’t believe we’re completely out of the game. We need to work like hell to make sure Conservatives aren’t silenced in the GOP conversation, but I honestly don’t believe we’re there yet.

What is the simple, primary cause for our side which ties the coalitions together? And what brings along those voters with fleeting attention paid to politics?

If the leadership and representatives of the Party would give due deference to the platform and followed the principles laid out in it…we’d be in a lot better shape…

The platform is the only thing grass roots activists in this party have to voice what we are about….and it’s ignored by party leadership after every election cycle!

You’re both wrong in a sense where the analogy is concerned though I agree whole heartedly with NeoKong because the Republican Party never stopped representing itself as conservative when it is anything but.

It’s more like Burger King decided to substitute Veggi Burgers in place of it’s Hamburger but still advertises is as a hamburger…not only that, they said you can have it your way but when you tell them the way you want it…they give you whatever they want to give you in the way of fixings and if you don’t like it that way…they tell you you can go to McDonalds or just stay home. On top of that…they tell you it only costs a buck for the hamburger that isn’t a hamburger but they don’t tell you you pay 10 cents per fixin on the top and they charge you for what they gave you which you didn’t order in the first place!

Finally…Burger king and it’s board of Directors walk around and make demands and believe they are entitled to have you patronize their business because at least they’re better than McDonalds!

Beat the hell out of the analogy my ample rear end!