You said: “Mike Sodrel is the only chance in 2008 to get good conservative fiscal leadership.”

That assertion is a function of the probability of each candidate getting elected and the probability of getting GCFL from that candidate.

What are the odds that each candidate will win– and what are the odds that Hill or Sodrel will suddenly become GCFL?

He pointed out that we don’t have much of a free market in this country as it pertains to political parties. We have embraced a two-party system that discourages competing political parties.

He suggested that more competition would improve both political parties as they sought to appeal to voters who have a broader set of choices at the ballot booth. This would keep Republicans from simply assuming that conservatives will vote only Republican when faced with a lesser of two evils choice. It would do the same for Democrats. Additional “moderate” choices could also pull politicians to the “middle”.

I agree with Rokita.

However, that’s separate from the practical choice that must be made in the 9th district. Mike Sodrel is the only chance in 2008 to get good conservative fiscal leadership.

I present for your analysis the difference between an Obama Presidency and a McCain Presidency as the difference between a Clinton Presidency and a Bush Presidency:

Clinton: Gets Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bush: Gets Samuel Alito and John Roberts.

Any difference there?

I prefer the flat tax, but Sodrel’s plan (repealing the sales tax if the income tax does not go away in X years) is the best I have seen and addresses concerns of dual taxation.

The differences are almost always nuance, not wholesale change like investigating the Federal Reserve, eliminating income taxes rather than tweaking them 5% one way or the other, privatizing social security instead of just figuring out who’s taxes to raise to pay for it.

I’ve heard many people argue that Newt’s brief revolution in the 90s doesn’t happen without Perot’s 19%. I don’t hear either one of the candidates admitting that government and the FED caused our current economic problems and even the Republican is offering more government agencies, more regulation and such as the fix. No thanks.

But I don’t necessarily think that you have to be in the “inner circles” to reform. In fact, I believe that reform will not come from there, it will come from the grassroots. And so much of the reform will happen at the primary level. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have Sean as a Republican option in the 9th district? He would begin with, oh, 40 percent and have to work for the rest. But instead he will start with a base of 3 or 5 percent.

Can a Libertarian survive in the Republican Party? Certainly! Chris’s sarcasm aside, Ron Paul has done just fine in the Republican Party. He was not refused for President because he was a Libertarian, it was because he was a weak candidate! (Full disclosure–MY candidate, Fred, was a weak candidate, too!)

My observation of Libertarians is that there are few things that separate them from conservative Republicans. They are also active and hard workers. By staying away from the Republican fight, they make it more difficult for conservatives to reform the party in a direction that the Libertarians would like.

And who knows. If Libertarians engaged in the Republican Party, they might even move some of the conservatives in a more Libertarian direction. And then they might have a chance to get some of their ideas implemented.

If the Republican Party isn’t doing what you want, aren’t you just encouraging their bad behavior by continuing to vote for them?

I can understand someone joining the inner circles and trying to reform the organization from within, but what about the millions of Americans who DON’T get involved, continue to vote the same way, and then complain about the same results?

If I were a Republican incumbant, I’d figure that I could do whatever the hell I want; because no matter what socialist programs I promote, I can always count on conservatives to vote me back in.

It’s kinda like the free market…if I don’t like the service at Wal-Mart, then I just stop going to Wal-Mart.

Ron Paul is a good man. But Ron Paul was not nominated by the Republican Party for a lot of reasons apart from his Libertarian philosophy. Certainly his foreign policy positions were out of line with most Republicans, but what really sunk him was: 1) The answer to almost any question ended up being a repudiation of the Iraq War and 2) his refusal to solidly separate himself from the “truthers”.

Chris, this is not hypocrisy. It is an effort to understand where we are TODAY and devise a way to get to where we want to be TOMORROW. You don’t transform a party by destroying it. You transform the party by getting inside of it and changing it from within. Being a member of the Republican Party does not mean that you agree with everything that the party does, or what the President does, or what either propose.

Just because my (and others here) don’t react to the Republican Party losing it’s way by jumping ship and becoming Libertarians does not mean that we agree with what is going on!

If you don’t think that you and the Libertarians cannot get involved with the Republican Party and change it for the better, what makes you think that you can transform the entirety of government?

If you’d like to throw out polling numbers and statistic because they don’t reinforce your view, then maybe it isn’t the polling that is incorrect. I’ll bookmark this page for when this blog upholds exit polling as truth.

Secondly, I’ve been very encouraged by the reception that the Republican establishment has given to Ron Paul and his brand of conservatism. (Sarcasm Heavily Implied.) There is no way to move entrenched parties back to a set of values it once held, when those who polluted the well now control access to it. Pat Buchanan has been been tilting at windmills for two decades.

Thirdly, a Libertarian and true Conservative is closely aligned with a modern Republican in words. However, the Bush administration is the classic example of doing one thing and saying another. The spending of Bush, along with socialistic programs such as the Paulson Plan are reasons enough for True Conservatives not to vote for John McCain, who really doesn’t differ from Bush.

Please, dear God please, will someone start defending Bush and the socialistic program they are about to push through Congress. Because you will be putting party over the principles you claim to hold dear.

Capitalism without failure is like Religion without heaven.