Do you suppose that the conservatives staying home in droves might have something to do with a non-conservative getting the nomination?
Your arguments don't hold water, FRiend.
You claim that conservatives have been staying home since 1992, presumably because of the two Bush presidents, and that "The Republican Party" nominated John McCain.
...except that it was the Republican voters who nominated John McCain. Remember the part about him winning the primary? Did the party somehow fix the election? The voters chose him, not "The Party".
Oh, and the same goes for Bush I and Bush II. The voters put them in the White House, not "The Party".
The Republican Party is the way it is because of how the voters within it are. That's an obvious statement, of course, but you seem to be ignoring it anyway.
"The Party" isn't some vague and distant "them"; it's us. The majority of we, as a group, including you, nominated and elected Bush I and Bush II, and nominated John McCain.
Part of a Republican form of government is that individuals don't always get to see their man in office. That's no different now than it has been for over 200 years. To see whomever you believe is the "right" man in office, you need to campaign for him and convince the majority that you're right.
Welcome to politics.
Before the nomination was sewed up, most Republicans voted against McCain, even though most of the early primaries were in less conservative states. As you may remember, a fair number of them were open primaries with many non-GOP voters, who voted heavily for McCain.
George H. Bush was nominated because he was Reagan's VP and ran as Reagan II. George W. Bush was nominated because the expected leading conservatives, Quayle and Gramm went nowhere, leaving nobody but Keyes to oppose Bush on the right. It was a sequence of unfortunate events. It was not as straightforward as you imply.
>>the Republican voters who nominated John McCain.<<
Ummm ... you’ve made my point. Conservatives didn’t nominate McCain. He was nominated by non-conservatives and so-called moderates and was the only serious candidate by the time many primaries came around. I’ve already conceded that we didn’t have many good conservative candidates this time around, but to the extent we had anyone that was a good conservative, he quit! I didn’t have a chance to decide whether Romney or Huckabee (or whoever else) would have made a good candidate because they quit before the primary I voted in.
I’m quite aware of how the process works. I don’t think YOU understand what I’m saying. Its a dual point: conservative voters are staying home because they don’t like moderate candidates and the ones they do actually vote for — whether they ran as conservatives or not — act like moderates in office. We went from Ronald Reagan landslides to sweating out or losing almost every election since.
>>To see whomever you believe is the “right” man in office, you need to campaign for him and convince the majority that you’re right.<<
I’m sorry. I really didn’t realize up until this comment I was dealing with someone who either thinks on a very basic level, or just wasn’t paying attention to why I posted what I did (i.e. didn’t read what I responded to). I feel like I’ve wasted my time answering your post, but I guess that’s my fault and not yours.
Let me see if I can make my point clear to you: if the Republicans want to win elections, they will stop nominating moderates like McCain, AND they will start demanding their elected officials (unlike Bush) behave like conservatives in office.