The majority of Republican voters are conservative and we provide most of the money, the volunteers, the ideas, the energy, and the enthusiasm. These conservatives are involved with politics because they have principles and ideals they believe in deeply and they want to see them implemented.
Cutting to the chase, we conservatives feel deeply betrayed by what has happened over the last 8 years. The GOP managed to get control of all three branches of government and other than a couple of great Supreme Court Justices, the Right has very little to show for it.
We suffered through Bush's selection of Harriet Miers, the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the GOP trying to force amnesty and open borders on the country, growing deficits, increasing government, a GOP sponsored takeover of banks, a President who refused to defend himself or conservatism publicly, and a "Republican elite" in DC who often seemed to hold their biggest supporters in contempt.
Indeed. We have to have good ideas, and articulate them well enough to sway our fellow citizens, then the sorry weasels who wooed our vote need to avoid falling into the DC bubble trap and and work to those principles.
Sigh.
Senator Specter said he wasn't elected to be a Republican, he was elected to represent the people of his Pennsylvania. Leaving aside his long-displayed narcicissm, he's correct. And if he has an accurate sense of things - that people like him are what Pennsylvania want, vice what a "Republican" stands for, then the Republicans need to find someone who define and deliver the conservative message in a way that attracts the voters back. And if they win the election, they damn well ought to fight the fight in the halls of Congress and not pander to Beltway pragmatism.