Stefanie wrote:
Bush has managed to increase spending (such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit plan) and expand government (Department of Homeland Security - $44.9 Billion annual budget) during his term in office.

I'll take that. I think most Conservative voters put homeland security before reducing the size of the federal budget on their priority lists, but I think you are generally correct that fiscal conservatives don't like the amount of spending that the Republicans have been doing.

Many have concerns about McCain's potential judicial appointees (McCain stated that Sam Alito is "too conservative").

This seems directly in line with my point, which is that the Conservative movement has become dominated by hardliners. In any situation where there are two choices, one choice is always going to be more conservative than the other. The right choice is always the most conservative one, regardless of context. Anyone who ever selects a less conservative choice in any context cannot be trusted with anything, ever again, and is no different from a communist.

There is a rumor that McCain liked Roberts but did not like Alito. Because that is less conservative than the choice of liking them both, McCain cannot be trusted and cannot be elected. No one who is throwing up their hands at this can articulate why a court with more people like Roberts and less people like Alito would be a bad thing, or what the difference between the two of them is in terms of their political philosophy. Its not about Roberts vs Alito. Its about blacklisting anyone who does not have their thinking aligned in the "correct" way in every single context.

Decius wrote:
They hate him because they hate half of the people who live in this country and see themselves at war with them.

Are you talking about Republicans or Democrats?

I am talking about Republicans. Provide an example of mainstream Democrats attacking Democratic politicans because they are willing to work with Republicans on policy issues...

Decius wrote:
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.

So, you perceive the conservative side of the immigration issue as being only about racism? You don't think that conservatives have any legitimate concerns regarding immigration law, or the negative social ramifications of having uncontrolled immigration from a third world country, regardless of skin color?

No, I don't perceive that its only about racism. The substantive difference between the policy positions of the Republican politicians and the conservative base with regard to illegal immigration is that the conservative base wants the issue dealt with by rounding up all of the illegal immigrants and throwing them out of the country by force, and the federal government cannot and will not do that. They cannot do it because it is usually not possible to prove where a person was born in a court of law, and they will not do it because it will create a long term homeless refugee problem that is several orders of magnitude worse than the Israel/Palestinian situation. What the conservative base wants in regard to immigration is simply not possible, and so using the Republican party's failure to deliver it as evidence that they are shifting left is not helpful.

RE: The Conservative Revival - New York Times