The state of conservatism is indeed, in real jeopardy.  Conservatives have NO viable candidate to espouse our views and promote our agenda.  Mr. Erickson has highlighted a growing concern of mine in his front page piece today; that the Republican Party is exploiting the conservative vote, money, and support, and is suborning our message through lip service but without effective execution.  For some time this was done quietly and with some attempt to cover the effects and even feed us the occasional “bone” to keep us pacified but now, given the ridiculous pronouncements of Romney as a “conservative” and the erratic performance of Gingrich as one, it may well be time, as Erick indicates, that the conservative movement must separate itself from the Republican Party.  For more proof, look at the way the Republican establishment and leadership has threatened, cajoled, and intimidated many of the 2010 freshman House members into going along with their weak and ineffective agenda by intimating that support and funding would be withheld during the next election cycle if they did not come into line.

The issue becomes, where to go or even, is there anywhere to go?  The nature of the Tea Party groups across the country is steeped in its desire for individual independence from each other.  That lack of unity, as seen by the disjointed support for various candidates, makes it very difficult for conservatives to move to the Tea Parties with any degree of ability to influence a Presidential election.  My local Tea Party group is very Ron Paul oriented and that has completely turned me off from support or attendance, particularly when one of the organizers and I had a very disagreeable conversation of Paul vs. Perry in which he was insistent that libertarianism was conservatism.  This is patently not so, but many Tea Party groups cannot make the differentiation.  Another Tea Party vulnerability is the co-option of some of the groups by the Republican Party.  It saw quickly, that the Tea Party movement was useful to keep together and under the party’s control and infiltrated some of them with big government ideologs positioned as leaders who have muted the conservative message and turned the organizations into a propaganda hub to keep the conservatives close to and subjective to, the Republican party.

While the Tea Party is not an answer, neither, in my opinion, is a third party.  A third party, even one made up of the vast majority of conservatives, will never be strong enough to wrest control away from either of the two major parties, especially since they seem to be growing more and more closely knit in their message and in their actions.  We have seen the failure of third parties and multiple parties over and over again in the political mix in this country, and we see the danger and instability of a coalition form of government as many European countries and Israel routinely have to form.  I can see no path to victory in any but regional or possibly state elections, for a third party.

So what do we do for 2012?  I agree with Erick that we are damaging the conservative movement by supporting candidates who espouse non-conservative ideas and who have exhibited time and time again, liberal policy executions when they held office.  Support for Romney will undo much we have accomplished and now seem so eager to give up.  Conservatives have proven to be a fickle lot of late; first by playing candidate hopscotch throughout this election cycle, until we managed to drive out every true conservative candidate we had because of one or the other of their perceived impurities to conservatism.  Now we find ourselves with the conservative cup empty; no candidate worthy of conservatism is left for us to support so we now quibble over the degrees of non-conservatism in the remaining candidates that we will accept in order to try and last until the next election cycle.  We have literally cut off every avenue of progress or escape with this incredible performance of stupidity, and I believe we may well have cut off our ability to have any impact in the next election cycle.  Waiting until 2016 is not and cannot be, a viable alternative.

So, where do conservatives go?  At present, I have no answer but I do recognize that we have reached a point in political life, where the existence of organized conservatism seems to be more endangered than in any other time I know of.  As they say in the bars here in Texas at closing time, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here”.  Where is home and where do we go?

Well, another debate gone by and once again very little of substance was discussed. While voters want to hear real solutions to problems such as jobs, the soaring deficit, and ways to end Obamacare and get the government off our backs; when they want to hear about entitlement reduction and no more TARP or bailouts, what do we get instead?

We get questions from CCN about wives, moon bases, political ads, and all the other garbage all cleverly formulated to culminate one of the most blistering and relentless attacks on a candidate I have seen in my life. Carpet-bombing is the only term that comes to mind if one reviews the events of yesterday. The attacks on Newt Gingrich were well planned and mounted from every direction; Drudge, Romney surrogates, talk radio, news agencies, and the Republican establishment. The Romneyites even managed to clean up Bob Dole, wipe the drool off his mouth, and carefully coach him into a Newt attack. A day of overwhelming cracks in the dam, too few fingers to plug them with, and then a debate.

Romney was obviously ready and relished his carefully rehearsed lines of attack, prepped to bolster the events of the day from any direction of defense. And, to some extent, it worked. Gingrich appeared somewhat disoriented and off his game in the extreme. Romney showed his true essence however; and came off as the exploitative bully who was secure in the fact that so many others were holding his opponent enabling him to batter him, almost at will, and appear to be so superior. Romney’s facial expressions belied his righteous indignation on the issues presented; they revealed his enjoyment of the conniving, coordinated beating he had administered all through the day. In his eyes, Gingrich had been destroyed and his unchallenged authority as the natural selection of the Republican establishment was secure. All he needed was a cigarette to complete the afterglow.

The question now is this; will conservatives let this die, throw in the towel and surrender Florida and the election to Romney or will they fight on from today through the primary next week? Lines of attack on Romney, much like the attack on Romneycare by Santorum, need to be developed. Concentrated exposure of his liberal Massachusetts record on issues that affect Floridians should be plastered over the airwaves, and as many Gingrich endorsers as possible need to flood the state and bolster their candidate.

This battle is not yet lost, despite the happy, satisfied pronouncements of the Romeyites and the premature moanings of the disappointed Gingrich conservatives. This is our last fight and our last opportunity. We conservatives did not rise to the level needed to defend and support Governor Perry but we took his advice and, after consideration on our own, took up the support for Speaker Gingrich. If we let him sink and do not do everything we can in the next few days to help resuscitate and revive his candidacy, any hope of a full conservative resurgence following the 2010 elections will be smothered. God bless us all and give us the strength to fight.

More and more the posts on RedState and in the public domain are calling for or speculating about a brokered convention due to dissatisfaction with the current crop of GOP candidates.  The basic premise seems to be that if the current candidates can be held to positions under fifty percent and thereby avoiding the outright selection of a nominee, that one of the magical wunderkind of the GOP who chose not to run or who could now be called upon to run, could sweep in and save the Republican Party from sure defeat at the hands of Candidate X (read Romney for some and Gingrich for others).  Names such as Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, and Mitch Daniels are tossed about as potential party saviors.

We Republicans have fallen victim to the liberal mantra that Obama is invincible, and that our candidates are weak and most have no chance of winning against him.  Both camps are firm in their belief that only their candidate is able to have a broad enough appeal to the general electorate to beat Obama.  Each camp quibbles over Gingrich’s personal issues and old record or Romney’s wealth and poor record as a conservative.  They each aver that the great Obama juggernaut will sweep over the opposing camp’s candidate if that person is chosen as the nominee and that we will then be doomed to four more years of Obama’s policies and government which will sign the death warrant of the country and sentence it to oblivion as a third world nation.

The truth of this matter is far from these positions.  Obama is a failed president on many levels and he has managed, in the short span of three years, to put us on the verge of economic and social disaster, and now threatens to usurp the powers of the Congress in order to continue his headlong flight into the welfare state “utopia”.  He has already done so with his recess appointment gambit and assures us in the State of the Union Address that he is ready to do even more.  His economic policies and regulations are driving more small businesses and individuals into failure and job loss as he knowingly tries to use his own destruction of the economy to create a Democratic voting base of the newly indigent who will keep the Democrats in power, just as pandering to minorities has kept them in power for so long until now.  The Democrats fear the re-awakened conservative grassroots movement and have seen that they can no longer count on the blue collar working vote of any make-up, to maintain their control.  What better example than the one recently exposed by Obama’s staffers that indicated his path to victory does not include the blue collar working class.

What we must do is recognize that he is imminently weak and almost assuredly fatally injured with his lack of performance.  We must avoid dreaming about the candidate/s who might have been and focus on the candidates we have now.  The process this election cycle is longer and more arduous than what we have been accustomed to in recent history and panic is setting in among those who should know better.  The primary system is serving its function; to vette the proposed candidates and let the voters select the best candidate to face Obama in the general election.  It is working as it should and we must allow it to play out and at its conclusion, we must support the nominee, whoever it may be, wholeheartedly.  A brokered convention will do nothing except alienate the voters in the states who have played by the rules and made their choices known.  To start the general election campaign with an untested, little-vetted candidate, is foolishness in the extreme.  A brokered convention is the surest way to insure a victory for Obama in an election cycle when almost any credible Republican candidate currently in the field could beat the incumbent (discounting Ron Paul, who is neither conservative nor Republican).  Each of the potential candidates proposed to take the convention through the brokering process have issues which make them no better than anyone currently in the field.  Jeb Bush becomes the moderate “Bush Dynasty candidate”; Governor Christie inherits the mantle of Romney from his social stances and support of him; Governor Daniels did not have the fire in the belly to enter the fray initially and will be seen as an opportunist if he factors in the mix; and Paul Ryan who has not the experience nor the following to be a viable candidate in the general election.

It is through the brokered convention that we lose our chance to, at best, take the White House out of Democrat hands and, at least, select a candidate with some conservative leaning to further the cause that so many of us care about in both fiscal and social conservatism.  FDR was the last successfully elected President from a brokered convention; after that, the Republicans lost with Dewey against Truman in a brokered convention in 1948 and the Democrats lost with Adlai Stevenson in 1952 against Eisenhower.  No, a brokered convention is not the way to success in 2012 and if the Republican Party pursues that route, it will certainly make the fears of all the combined current candidate camps a needless and horrible reality.         

I have never been a big Palin bandwagon fan.  I was glad when McCain chose her as the VP nominee in 2008 because she had the potential to bring interest, attention, and some spice to the very dull and unexiciting RINO choice for President.  I have since, however, been unimpressed with Palin’s behavior and handling of issues.  I am glad she has been able to parley her national fame and attention into a lucrative contract with Fox and has become a media spokesperson because that is what free market capitalism is all about; she has found a niche to fit her talents and her popularity and it has paid off.  I salute her for that.

What is unimpressive however, is that she has pretended to keep her mantle of Tea Party conservatism and purports to still speak for conservatives.  Her behavoir during this election cycle is beyond curious; it is obvious that she is no longer committed to the conservative cause as a leader, if that commitment threatens her paycheck.  I can think of no other reason for her to coyly fail to provide her guidance and support to a real conservative candidate prior to the Iowa caucuses.  This has contributed greatly to the confusion and turmoil the conservative wing of the Republican Party finds itself in today. 

For this reason, conservatives should give her opinions no more authority or importance than any other paid news opinion commentator and conservatives should be aware enough of this to let her go her way without following blindly her now tainted prognostications.  She has abdicated the status of leader and freely chosen to earn a living for the benefit of herself and her family.  She is now a Hannity, Krauthammer, O’Reilly; her opinions serve only as that– opinions; not as direction for her conservative flock.  She lost that mantle some time ago and should be allowed to go peacefully on her way.

As to her statements of support for Speaker Gingrich, she is free to express her opinions and she does have a powerful media pulpit to broadcast them from.  At this point however, conservatives should have no doubts that she, while still one of us, is now influenced by her employer and by her desire to maintain a very substantial income stream.

Governor Perry remains the choice of real Tenth Amendment conservatives and his support should not rise or fall on the statements of news opinion commentators such as Sarah Palin.

Go Gov.!