Had I the space in the title I would subtitle this piece Why Hugh is Right and Wrong, but alas I do not.

Let me begin this by stating that as a conservative first and a republican second I will nevertheless vote for which ever candidate the GOP puts up for election in 08…warts and all. While I will not say that I don’t care which candidate gets the nominee I will say that it ultimately does not matter in so far as where my vote will be cast for president in 2008. Having said that I will add that I have little to no confidence that I will like or be enthusiastic about any candidate in 2008…but I will come to that later.

Why have I started my post with such a declaration? Simple. In what is to follow there are going to be many statements about candidates and segments of the GOP regarding compromise, willingness to vote for candidates based on certain criteria etc etc and I do not want the reader to make the mistake of assuming that the things I am going to be discussing are necessarily representative of my own position. I am offering analysis here. At times my own thoughts will be clearly stated but I don’t want the reader when I talk about Romney’s Mormonism to say “oh you’re a Mormon hater” So let me reiterate I am going to vote in 2008 for whichever candidate gets the nomination.

I will do so because I believe the single most important and defining issue of our time is the threat of radical Islam and I not only think that the democrat party (and any candidate they might put up) is completely incapable of dealing with the threat, I go further to say that having a democrat in the white house would almost certainly be disastrous for the safety and future of the country if not the world at large. Their fecklessness and complete misreading of the nature of the threat puts at risk quite literally everything that not only this country but western civilization stands for. Some would say I am being histrionic. Fine, they are entitled to their belief. Suffice it to say I do not believe that this is understating the threat.

Believing this as I do it follows that nothing else is of equal importance. Debating about who marries who, who can or can’t have an abortion, who sits on the Supreme Court, how high taxes are, etc. etc…all of this becomes irrelevant, because if there is no future for our nation then such debates are meaningless to enter into. That does not mean that the positions of politicians regarding these issue do not matter to me. They do a great deal but if someone can not get the main point right then being right on everything else does me no good. I will never enjoy the fruits of sound policy on some secondary issue if at first the safety of my nation is not secure.

So whether I like or dislike that McCain is vain and betrays conservatives at every step is irrelevant when the alternative is Hillary…or Gore…or any other democrat. Likewise, Giuliani’s pro choice is equally irrelevant. I do not know enough about Romney’s politics and character at this point to specify any particular thing I like or dislike…but were I someone who would be inclined to vote against him because of his religion or if he (as I suspect) is a person of “flexible” political convictions, then even still it would be irrelevant to me in the face of the alternative.

DO not mistake this as an endorsement of the GOP’s handling of the war against radical Islam. Point in fact I remain unconvinced that the GOP is of the correct mindset and preparation to deal with the threat, but once again as a matter of comparison it is night and day to me who would do the better job of the choices that will be available.

If you were to go back to my desired subtitle for reference I would say that what passed before is where Hugh Hewitt and I would be in fairly close company. At least in so far as I understand Hugh this is (excepting my characterizations of the candidates) pretty much the same view Hugh would have. This is where I believe he is right. Nothing is as important as WINNING because the stakes of losing are to high and the price of failure too dire to contemplate.

That is probably where Hugh and I would part companies.

I am not someone that currently has a great deal of expectation that we will emerge victorious in 2008. There are many diverse reasons for this but one of the primary reasons is that I believe it is unlikely that any of the current frontrunners has a likelihood of success. I’ll go into more detail on that in a bit but first I want to say that my opinion should not be taken as a sign of defeatism. The mere fact that I am taking the time to elucidate my thoughts and put them down for others to read is ample sign that I do not think anything is inevitable. It is two long years till the election. A candidate might emerge and then my perspective and opinion on any existing candidate could prove wrong. I’m not afraid of being wrong I was dead wrong about 06 though unlike some who will remain unnamed I had the honesty to own up to it and not pretend I had been right all along you just didn’t understand was I was saying. You know the saying. Opinions are like ______ everyone has one. Well this is mine and for now I’m sticking by it.

The problem with 08 is a matter of perception and it is deeply integrated into an analysis of what occurred in 06. Once again...everyone has an opinion, these are just some of the more prominent ones I have heard:

1. Republicans lost because they failed to govern.
2. Republicans lost because the country is sick of Bush.
3. Republicans lost because democrats offered a plan. (Cough: Sputter: Chuckle)
4. Republicans lost because people want us out of Iraq.
5. Republican lost because they weren’t conservative
6. Republicans lost because they were too conservative.
7. All of the above
8. None of the above

There are actually more but these seem to encompass most in some form or other. Over at A Word to the Wise Sandra Wise, my fellow townhall.com blogger postulated that there was an uncompromising core of the republican party and through this core, which has control of the conservative media none of the positive aspects of republican leadership were getting out. Only the negative. As a result people voted out the republicans. Sandra goes further to state that if this uncompromising core doesn’t start compromising we will lose in 08 Like Hugh I believe her to be both right and wrong.

This is an edited for clarity reposting of a comment conversation from her blog.

Prysson: I have to respectfully disagree.

Perhaps I am wrong but you seem to be lamenting the fact that people have criticized Bush and that is why we lost the election.

The President is I am sure a decent good man. But he has made some abysmal mistakes an it is necessary to call him to task for those mistakes. We are not liberals who forgive any sin and any mistake so long as we retain power.

The president has made many mistakes and in some aspects has frankly governed miserably. He has certainly done well in some areas and I credit him with that, but where he has fouled up he needs to be called to account. The correct thing to do is not to turn a blind eye and pretend that all is well when it is not. Honesty and truth are important...even if we don't like it.

Sandra: We'll never get a perfect president. If our side airs their dirty laundry in public, i.e. constant negativism towards the president, then that's all the public hears.

Some people are asking - How do we get our message out? If we can't get a positive message out through the conservative media, then where do we go to get it out? Bush has done some really good things. He's kept our economy strong and kept us safe. That message was lost.

Prysson: I appreciate your point. I just believe that if the president is in fact doing a poor job than he needs to be called on it. I wanted conservatives to win as much as anyone and I put my money and my vote where my mouth is. But poor policy decisions have to be criticized...if being honest about it costs us elections than I have to say so be it.

Sandra : Would one of the poor policy decisions be a guest worker program? Bush ran on this and he is a man of his word. I think that it all boiled down to conservatives getting angry over immigration.

Prysson: I think that the guest worker is one of many things actually.

If you go back to the first Bush term he did things like sign McCain Feingold. He passed prescription drugs, the single biggest entitlement addition to the federal government since social security. He spent like a drunken sailor. He did a lousy job pushing his social security reform bill. He instituted a massive federalization of the education system with no child left behind…I could go on.

During all that time we kept hearing talking heads saying things like “well this is just a tactic to triangulate...once we get a second term its Katie bar the door conservative agenda.”

After the second term we got Harriet Miers, the Dubai ports deal and yes amnesty for illegals.

Now don't misunderstand me. I voted for G.W. and being a displaced Texan I knew that Bush was no conservative but a moderate when I voted for him BOTH times. Knowing everything I do I would vote for him again.

But just because I vote for a man doesn't mean I won’t criticize him when he does something I think is wrong and in some instances just stupid.

More importantly in evaluating the last election cycle I think that all of these things coupled with a war that has turned into a police action in Iraq and add into that a congress gone crazy with earmarks, corruption, scandals and an absolute and utter failure to push forward the conservative agenda...well I think it was a recipe for disaster for the GOP.

I am a supporter of the GOP and despite my criticism I am a supporter of the president. But he made horrible mistakes and I think the president is getting ready to compound some of those by working with democrats to push through a democrat immigration reform package.

What I am trying to say is that I think it is not the fault of people who criticized poor decisions and action on the part of congress and the president that we lost the election. It is the fault of those people in power who performed those actions that we lost. We should never hold ourselves back from criticism when our party is doing the wrong thing. That would make us like the democrats who will go along with ANYTHING from their elected leaders so long as they stay in power.

Sheila : (In a separate conversation running simultaneously with another fellow townhall.com blogger Sheila.) Yep, there was nothing but negative mantra against Bush repeated by the media over and over. Then the conservative media joined in with the Miers nomination and kept going.

{Enter Jimmy Carter…not the exPresident (using that term loosely) but another fellow Townhall blogger into the conversation}

Jimmy: President Bush followed President Reagan's example. He allowed all spending bills in order to get his agenda agreed to.

President Bush signed all spending bills believing his tax cut proposals would make up the difference. That was his idea of bipartisanship.

With the growth of government expanding at the rate it has conservatives sought a different outcome.

I think if President Bush was on the ballot he would have been defeated. As to what Sandra had related, conservatives do not compromise.

…..

Sandra....

...Miers had absolutely no influence on this election whatsoever. The Miers situation was an wonderful example of the constituents speaking loud and clear.

Prysson: Sandra

Your reply to Sheila is indicative of something...you said

Then the conservative media joined in with the Miers nomination and kept going.

BINGO!

The Miers nomination was literally the straw that broke the camels back.

For a lot of social conservatives as well as constitutional conservatives the courts are everything. They could accept a president that spent like a lotto winner. They swallow...barely…prescription drugs. They could tolerate no child left behind...but the reason for doing so was in the nature of the big payoff. It was all about judges.

Make no mistake...the nomination of Harreit Miers to the supreme courts was blatant cronyism. Bush was doing a favor for his long time friend and personal lawyer. Supreme Court seats are not appropriate forms of payment. Without the appropriate bona fides (indeed the longer the nomination drew out the more it seemed she most certainly did NOT have the conservative constructionist legal perspective) there was no way they were gonna swallow that too.

It was one straw too many. The flood gates were opened. Open rebellion in the party and with that cat out of the bag many in the party were no longer willing to keep swallowing bad policy to get the good judges.

The GOP leadership just can't keep pushing anti-conservative policy and continue to violate conservative ideological sentiments and expect the conservative base to do nothing. Once in a while to make a pragmatic sacrifice for the sake of a larger picture is something that can be swallowed. But over and over and over again will not be borne by a portion of our party.

It can be frustrating because the party can then go out and convulse and you end up with Clinton's in the white house. I certainly feel your frustration on that. But at the same time I have a sympathy for those who "convulse" as it were because they do so out of principle...genuine principle and conviction. That is something the liberals lack.

Prysson: (To Jimmy)

Your summation strikes me as fairly accurate but don’t forget Bush genuinely believes in government. He is NOT a movement conservative. He is a principled man with conservative leanings...but he believes in the power of government. He believes in No Child left behind. He believes in open borders, he believes in many things that movement conservatives disagree with. That’s fine I can vote for a man that I disagree with on things. And I don't want anyone to think I don’t respect and admire the man. I do. But the disagreements are their.

He most certainly went along with a portion of that agenda to get other parts through. He is a quid pro quo kind of a guy. And you are right. Eventually it was just too much for the conservatives. They wanted a different direction.

Re Miers

I disagree there

Miers certainly wasn't on the ballot as an issue I grant you that.

However, what Miers represents is the stepping off point. You can mark the Miers nomination as a beginning point of a resistance to the GOP from within its own ranks from that point on.

The dissatisfaction that had been building from other big government policies and damned up behind lock step support broke and that hole never got plugged again. Yes Bush redeemed himself with Alito...but the damage was done. To a portion of the party Miers was a betrayal and their loyalty was shot.

I honestly think from that point on Bush made himself a virtual lame duck. Had Bush given us Alito and no Miers I would bet he would have gotten his immigration reform. That is completely speculative on my part...but I see the Miers nomination as the beginning of the end for the current crop of the GOP leadership. The conservatives had swallowed enough and they weren’t gonna take it anymore.

Sandra: Yes, the conservative base does not compromise. That is the message of my essay. That's why we lost.

I would rather have a Red map and then start kicking out the RHINOs. Now we've lost some of our most conservative leaders.

Hence Bush will compromise with the Dems, with the RHINO's help. He's not running again and he's a man that wants to get something accomplished. This will turn off the base even further and voila! Clinton's back in the White House with bigger majorities.

Life is compromise. Those who never compromise end up very disappointed.

Allow me to just interject something I should have said at the time. The ones who ended up disappointed here were the ones willing to compromise. The conservatives who wanted to punish republicans got their wish and are not unhappy with the results for the most part. I’ll come back to this point later but it is important to the overall argument. Sandra is I believe wrong on this account.

At this point I will leave the conversation recap because I intend to restate with greater clarity some of my follow up points as they relate to my over all argument. I will summarize it by saying that there are those in the party that view a segment of the core base as uncompromising and as such view them as ultimately responsible for our losing in the last election cycle and fear that they will cause us to lose again.

I do not entirely disagree with this analysis or the fear for future elections.

Where I have my disagreement is in whether or not blame should be attached to them and further if they are the correct people to target in such a manner for a desired win in 08.

I am going to go off on a yet further aside here to discuss something I think will clarify the argument.

What is a political party? I mean what is it really.

I think of a political party PARTLY as a collection of people of diverse political goals that nevertheless have common threads that come together to form a consensus and through the collective expression of their will through the voting process they are able to effect policy. It is more than that but that is enough for now. The political process of a party involves people with different agenda’s coming together and making...yes compromises with one another in the understanding that each will accomplish together movement politically on their policies that they could not accomplish separately. Frequently in this process goals coincide, one group may have as its primary agenda one specific issue but find themselves in agreement on several other policy initiatives with other groups. Their priorities may be different but they are similar enough in kind and have enough commonalities to provide for common cause. Out of this gets borne a party dedicated to the pursuit of those common purposes through political process.

If you were to look at a party you would see people of all types of persuasion, some compromising in nature some not. You could if you wanted to, probably quantify the various components of a party into various segments by percentage. For example you might have your center right that constitutes 25 percent. Constitutionalists and maybe they represent 15 percent. Evangelical Christians...maybe they represent 20 percent. The numbers are not necessarily accurate reflection of their level of influence I don’t have hard data to define these segments of the party but frankly it isn’t necessary for the argument. The point is that the party is made up of parts. Some of these part are more willing to compromise than others. Some people belong to different parts and some parts over lap on different issues. ALL of them compromise by definition in order to create a party.

Now why is there not a third party? This is important. The country is divided into thirds. One third is democrat, one third republican and one third independent. Throw out independent and insert undecided, fence sitter, uncommitted what have you. You should begin to understand why they don’t have a party. Oh certainly not everyone who defines themselves as an independent is undecided or uncommitted...but we are not talking about individuals here we are talking about segments of a society and it can never be forgotten in this argument that parties are not individuals but collections. If you are an independent, then no matter how committed or decided or principled or ideologically driven you are you are in real application surrounded by fence sitters.

You can not build a party from undecided voters. Why? Because they don’t care. That is why they are undecided. I can here the screeching now...but hold. The political arguments that drive this nation are well defined. If you are undecided on them it is fundamentally because you are not paying attention and are not informed enough to make a decision. Thus, your indecisiveness. You don’t associate with a party (in general) because you don’t care enough about the arguments to choose a side. Like all independents you generally wait until the last moment...frequently the decision on who to vote for is made over banalities like how handsome they are, how well spoken, how sincere seeming or some other lunacy that is oriented about anything other than the issues. The mushy middle doesn’t even know what the issues are because they don’t care enough to pay attention.

The middle, or henceforth independents, may lean in one direction or another but they do not come down on any side solidly or with any consistency because the criteria upon which they vote is not ideologically driven. This is also why you can’t build a party out of them. There is not enough committed conviction there to establish a movement (let alone money and man power) Certainly an independent candidate can come along once in a blue moon and have an impact. They almost always have an impact because of dissatisfied party voters who for whatever reason have abandoned their party and in protest have sided with the independent.

Such successes however are fleeting at best, and that is assuming they are even remotely successful. Perot succeeded in nothing short of getting Clinton elected twice. Jesse Venture managed to get elected but couldn’t get reelected. That was because those who abandoned their party in fits of pique and dissatisfaction eventually returned to the fold AS THEY ALWAYS DO.

The only potential for a long term alternative party in the American political landscape is for a party that is purely ideologically driven…so much so in fact that they are nothing more than a fringe party that can not actually effect real and significant influences on policy. The American constitutional makeup prevents them from holding any meaningful power in the system and this by the way is a GOOD thing. Systems that allow for fringe groups to acquire power through temporary political alliances lead to extremely unstable systems. One need only look at Europe and Israel to see the foolishness of such systems.

So in America there are only two parties and no chance of a third party coming to real power because the only group of uncommitted voters are…well...uncommitted.

So where am I going with this?

American political parties are by their nature made up of a core base of ideologically driven purists that compromise with more center thinking people out of a certain knowledge that alone they can not accomplish anything. The important thing to comprehend here though is that the core base of any party is the ideological purist whose consent to compromise is the keystone to success. If you don’t have that consent you can not win elections.

The GOP contrary to Hugh Hewitt’s assertions is not a center right party. It is a right wing party that agrees to compromise with centrists in order to acquire political influence and thereby effect policy. Likewise the democrat party is not a center left party but rather a left wing party of radicals that compromise with centrists for the same reasons. The only proof you need to know that this is the case is that when the base becomes discontent and either votes outside the party or else stays home the party loses. The inevitable fallout is that the party moves back to its roots…the compromise process begins all over again by negotiating trustful relationships and stratagems to bring the centrist back into the fold. But without the ideologues on the right or left agreeing the party goes nowhere.

This is the reality of American politics...right, wrong, indifferent. I am neither advocating nor condemning this, I am merely stating that this is the reality that political movements in America must accept as the fundamental basis of their success and/or failure. To be sure, the purists eventually have to come back to the centrists and accept a compromise and coalition in order to advance their agenda again but the PARTY moves back to the ideologues because as a political entity that is where its bread is buttered. Centrists are not powerless in this relationship, but by definition they do NOT get to set the rules.

Because people by nature like to pettifog in order to obfuscate the issue I know people reading this will start bringing up individual centrists etc that win elections. The central point of my argument however is not oriented around the anomalies of the system, but focuses instead on large broader realities that effect the make up of the American political system.

Consider the last election cycle. The democrats won how? By capturing the center. “Oh see your whole argument is wrong Prysson.” No it isn’t. The democrats after years of being out of power compromised and managed to create a coalition that moved to the center and captured the flag if you will. I know some of you would object insisting that Pelosi is as speaker is NOT centrist. True. But 40 blue dog democrats in the House IS. Webb IS. Even further, some will argue that already the left wing ideologues such as the bloggers at KOS are rumbling about the influence these centrists are having in the process. But this only make’s my case. The left was fooled by its own party and its own bile. The loonies of the left were so desperate to recapture power that they voted for anyone with a D next to their name…hence they compromised. That comprise may have been unwitting but it was there. Ironically the party putting up centrist candidate only compounded the discontent on the right by providing candidates that the discontented GOPers could stomach enough to vote for to hand victory to the opposition. Regardless though the left could not have won without :

1. putting up centrists and
2. the right base being discontent.

It is actually in the conservatives favor that only through this dual circumstance that the left was able to win at all...and even then barely.

Now I can almost hear Sandra thinking…see I told you it was the unwillingness of the base to compromise that we lost.

Yes Sandra..but no.

And Hugh this is my bone of contention with you too.

We lost yes because the base reached a point where compromise was unacceptable, though I would remind the reader that in my view the centrists had pushed the nature of compromise to outright surrender of principle. However, I would also remind the reader that the party is fundamentally THEIR PARTY.

I know, I know it’s our party too. Once again yes, but no. It’s our party because we claim it...but to win, it also has to claim us. It does no good to run around screaming “I am a republican” and then vote for pro choice, gun control, welfare benefits and surrender. Very soon that which is the base will say “You are NOT a republican” and all your protestations to the contrary will not gain your their support. Ultimately the ideologues get to make the rules. Compromise is on THEIR terms not ours because they hold the keys.

Why do THEY get to hold the keys…because a centrist by nature is WILLING to compromise more than the ideologue. Remember that the party is made of up segments that agree to compromise together to achieve a larger political aim. But that is too one dimensional if you want to understand the undercurrent that drives it. If your success is dependant upon compromise then the segment less prone to compromise holds the cards. Certainly they have to compromise to win…but so do you, and you are already willing to compromise so the SENSIBLE thing to do, and what ultimately becomes the political reality, is that you compromise more in their direction than they do in yours. (Until a majority is achieved at which point the party begins to operate under the delusion that it no longer needs it’s base to govern.)

So when you lose an election it does no good to stand around saying we lost because you refused to compromise. They could just as easily level the same accusation against you. And they would be right because if you were politically astute enough you would understand that only by compromising in their direction are you going to succeed. You have to convince them, not the other way around. Certainly, you could fool them as the democrat party did its own constituents, but there is quickly hell to pay as the reality that they were snookered sinks in which is what the democrats are even now facing.

Let me phrase it a different way…just to belabor the point. If you know that a segment of your party is less prone to tolerate utter failure to address their central agenda items then it is political suicide to insist on refusing to address their agenda items. The onus is not really on them to compromise. They are ideologues and purists. They would by their nature be perfectly content to see you lose as a lesson in how absolutely you need their consent. Recap my point to Sandra that I should have made but didn’t. The conservative that did not vote for the GOP in 06 are NOT discontented with the outcome. The people who DID vote for the GOP are the ones who are disappointed. The ideologues got precisely what they wanted. I am not saying what they did was rational or right or smart or anything else of the kind. I am saying that it is the reality and the claim otherwise is to miss the point.

But we are missing the point.

Bush is NOT a movement conservative. He is a moderate republican that believes in big government and has an agenda he wants to move forward. He is also far more pragmatic then the left ever gave him credit for. He will happily give them large swathes of what they want if it means he also gets what he wants. He WILL work with the democrats. He will be disappointed to find that a GOP congress moving closer to its base will be less inclined to go along. The problem is that the Bush still represents the base and they are still not happy. The more Bush pushes forward to work with democrats to move agenda’s the base doesn’t want moved the less happy they will become with the party and the more likely schism will be the result.

But it gets worse. The party leaders and talking heads with a few notable exceptions do NOT seem to have gotten the message clearly enough. As a result they are even now attempting to convince that same base that is not in a compromising frame of mind that Giuliani or Mit or in some instances McCain is going to be their next nominee and by God they better get on board or else. That is the message of Hugh and I think it’s a downright foolish one and completely misreading the tea leaves. It’s as bad as his reading of the Harriet Miers incident which I will remind the reader he was completely and totally wrong about in every aspect. But Hugh thinks it’s a center right party and his delusion holds firm.

I would argue that you can’t lecture a discontented base that they had better shape up and continue to sacrifice their principles or they will continue to lose. They will answer “So what...you lose too.” You can say all you want that without you they will never regain power but the reverse is also true and in the strictest reading of things you are already by definition willing to compromise more than them so what on earth is the rationale by deciding suddenly that by God I’m not going to compromise. Suddenly you have become the stubborn fool too and you have no ground left to stand on.

Enter the candidates for 08

McCain, whom Hugh is convinced has no chance of winning the nomination. This is Hugh’s shot for conservatives but he is wrong here too. McCain has plenty of money and media support to suffocate contenders. He is, despite the loathing that the base feels for him in the best position far and away to capture the nomination if he gets early momentum he could win. Particularly since the other contenders don’t offer much to choose from and certainly don’t motivate the base to support them either. Giuliani? He is more liberal than McCain. I may be wrong but I suspect he is a nonstarter. He is a centrist candidate that pushes the base too far to the left to acquire willing support. He almost certainly would never garner enthusiastic support.

Romney? I hate to say it but he is a political unknown and no matter how you slice it he is a Mormon. From listening to Hugh I get the sense that this is his man. I don’t speak for Hugh obviously and Hugh would no doubt insist that he has no current favorite or endorsed candidate, but I listen to Hugh all of the time and the sense I get is that this is Hugh’s choice for president. The fact that Hugh is writing a book called a Mormon in the White House tends to support this notion.

Hugh is I think underestimating the power and influence of religious bias in the political arena. Hugh makes no bones that he believes that secular nature of the American political spectrum means that we should not evaluate political candidate’s on the basis of their religion but strictly judge them on the merit of their policies. There are two weaknesses to this argument and neither is in substance but rather both lie in practice. The first weakness is that we don’t know his policies really. Not as a party at large. Maybe Hugh knows a lot about him but the base doesn’t. Also, from what I have seen I am not impressed. He is full of the same general tepid rhetoric on the GWOT which frankly doesn’t impress me and I doubt will impress anyone else and one of the few instances where I have seen him in action he was retreating from a tar baby reference in full politically correct apology mode. Neither of these places me in a position where I have great deal of confidence in him being a strong leader.

Is that enough to judge on…no there is a great deal more to be know but its an indicator to me that I am not exactly going to be wowed by the things I find out.

As for his Mormonism, Hugh can say all he wants that the public shouldn’t care about it but there is going to be a segment that does. No matter how much Hugh wants to argue that people shouldn’t decide on their candidate based on religious beliefs that is not in fact how it works. People DO vote for people on the basis of their religious beliefs. More importantly a significant segment of the base has their religious beliefs as a primary foundation upon which they make their political judgments. That isn’t going to change just because Hugh Hewitt writes a book about it. Hugh is influential yes but not THAT influential. I know people personally who would not vote for Mit because he is a Mormon and a recent poll shows that About 43 percent of Americans wouldn't even consider voting for a Mormon for president…and ..of those who identified themselves as evangelicals, 53 percent said they wouldn't consider voting for a Mormon candidate.. Right or wrong doesn’t matter. It is just a fact. It’s also why pushing the man forward as a candidate isn’t in my opinion wise.

We are as Sandra has pointed out and as the 06 election ought to have made abundantly clear in a situation where the party is on thin ice. A significant segment of the party’s base was discontented enough with our lack of conservative leadership to sink the party by either staying at home or else voting for the opposition. It seems fairly evident to me that if we want to recapture the congress, let alone hold on to the White House, in 08 the thing we ought to be considering as a party is how to get the discontented base back on side and willing to participate. Saying they won’t compromise or that they HAVE to compromise isn’t good enough and will cost us the game. WE have to move to them if we want to win.

“But they have to move to us if THEY want to win” You say?

That’s the point...they have already demonstrated that they are perfectly fine with losing. They are the ones you have to convince and you are not going to convince them by saying “You better shape up and get with the program or we’ll lose again” There response will be the same. “Fine go ahead and lose again.” The politics will shift back in their direction and they know it. Even worse...some of them are becoming convinced (at least for now) that the party can operate more effectively as a minority. I think that will change over time but certainly a minority party is going to be one they identify with better and you are going to have to convince them otherwise. As I said before THEY HOLD THE CARDS. Their participation is essential or we lose.

I have heard people say “well so is mine and I don’t want to be that conservative” Well that’s fine but then you don’t have any ground to stand on by accusing them of not being willing to compromise. The reality is that their own intransigence, coupled with their essential and fundamental importance in winning means that the party needs to convince them to come along. You do that by governing conservatively and putting forward conservative candidates. You do not do that by telling a bunch of fed up conservatives that they had better learn to live with Giuliani and toe the line or else.

I have heard conservatives call up shows like Hugh’s and say I want Newt. To which Hugh says “Forget it he can’t win”. Now I would agree with Hugh that Newt has baggage and would certainly have a tough row to hoe…but I don’t agree that he couldn’t win. Hugh would be immediately dismissive of me in suggesting such a thing…and so I would simply recollect how utterly wrong Hugh was when he suggested that it was Harriet Miers or worse because we could NEVER get a real conservative judge through. The politics he said just weren’t their.

So Hugh’s political judgment is hardly flawless and I would have to say his position on Newt is potentially wrong as well. But more importantly I would want to ask Hugh. Why do you suggest Newt couldn’t win but then tell a base completely disinclined to vote for Giuliani that they should get on board if he wins the primary and vote for him? It’s inconsistent Hugh. The math should tell you that a base that doesn’t want to vote for the man means he can’t win…but apparently you are prepared to chastise the base for being stupid if they don’t get on board. You (and your guest host Jed Babbin) will lecture your audience about how they have to be willing to compromise and come together under a Giuliani but then tell people that Newt has to be dismissed because in your judgment he can’t win.

It is inconsistent to say that Newt can’t win because he has too much baggage but then say Mit can win despite his baggage if we just convince people to ignore the fact that he has baggage. I’m not saying Newt CAN win…but why should we believe he has any less chance at winning than any other candidate. He certainly has better idea’s than the other candidates and better conservative bona fides as well in my opinion. A running straw poll over at GOPbloggers.com has him as the leading conservative candidate in the primary so why should the conservatives substitute your judgment for theirs when it has been known to be wrong in the past.

In the end whether we win or lose is going to be determined by whether or not we can regather our party and get us to all agree to work together. Since this conservative core that left the party did so out of frustration with our refusal to govern as conservatives I have to say that it strikes me as extremely unlikely that we are going to gather them back into the fold by forcing moderate to liberal candidates on them for the presidency in 08’ That is a calculation that the party needs to make but time is running out. As I said at the beginning I’ll vote for whoever the party puts forward but that just me. I’m not the guy you have to convince.