[Mr. Jeeves]

Well, if a party’s message doesn’t appeal to the electorate, they have to find one that does. California’s GOP has the exact same problem: social conservatives and RINOs in both states are slugging it out over who are the real Republicans (as if the West were Alabama or New York), and the libertarian themes that could gain large support here are ignored.

[MovementConservative]

There are some very short-sighted people in Oregon with loud voices. One conservative commentator was trashing McCain because McCain wants to close Gitmo and move the prisoners to leavenworth. Now that’s something to get excited about. /sarc.

[SoConPubbie]

Well, if a party’s message doesn’t appeal to the electorate, they have to find one that does. California’s GOP has the exact same problem: social conservatives and RINOs in both states are slugging it out over who are the real Republicans (as if the West were Alabama or New York), and the libertarian themes that could gain large support here are ignored.

I don't by that explanation either.

Reagan was able to keep all three legs of the Conservative stool together by promoting sound conservative ideals in the fiscal, defense related, and social arenas of governing.

The moderates/liberals in control of the party machinery are doing everything they can to divide and conquer the natural allies consisting of the conservative factions.

So far they have been quite effective by moving open primaries up to the front of the race and by starting the primaries and the primary process so much earlier than usual.

The only way we are going to gain control of this whole process is through the grass-roots and more hands on involvement in the process.

We need to get involved at every level and need to focus on re-vamping the overall process including the following:

1. Closing all primaries
2. Rewarding states who reliably vote conservative in the primaries by putting them at the front of the line.
3. Forcing the states to hold their primaries in a more reasonable time-frame like they used to do.

Furthermore, the GOP needs to understand that unless they run candidates that are acceptable to conservatives, no matter what the fear tactics they emply, that conservatives are not going to support them.

In short, we need to get busy taking back our party.