Stefanie wrote:
The Republican Party has already moved closer to the left. That's why so many real conservatives are dissatisfied with the Republicans.

Has the Republican party moved left?

There was a lot of yammering in 2006 about Republicans loosing because they weren't Republican enough, but I never felt that made any sense. It just seemed like pundits selling their continued relevancy. I don't think people picked Democrats because they thought they'd be more conservative!

There was the immigration debate, but frankly the "round up all the brown people" policy preferences that conservative pundits have managed to sow are absolute non-starters. I don't think that disagreement was as much the product of a leftward shift by the politicians as a rigid radicalism in the party's base hitting the real world like bird flying into a plate glass window.

What about the dislike for McCain? It seems to be driven out of the same quarters and seems to have more to do with his willingness to negotiate with Democrats than any actual policy preference that he might have. They hate him because they hate half of the people who live in this country and see themselves at war with them. They hate anyone who will so much as talk to people left of center. You are either with the right wing or you are against them.

You can count me among those who deeply dislikes McCain Feingold, but I don't think it makes sense to view him entirely through it's prism. I'm certainly not mad enough about it to refuse to vote for him. Something in me suspects that those who really hate him for it might have lost more in that bill than the anonymity of their political donations.

I don't perceive that the Republican party has moved left so much as I perceive that the ideology of the conservative movement has become more rigid, insular, and hostile than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Can you give me some counter examples?

RE: The Conservative Revival - New York Times