That being said I will vote for McCain…I have sent him money. Better him than the communist Obama. We should not underestimate the damage he can do to our country. He is a hard left candidate and only blood follows those folks around. I don’t want a race war and he will bring it about.

RINO is a charge of disloyalty to Republican principles, not to the Republican party. Its being warped by party-liners (and by those who pretend to be party-liners but would jump ship if a moderate Conservative were nominated).

Republican principles include things like:

1. Respect for Law and Order

2. National Security Strength

3. Pro-life

4. Defense of the Judeo-Christian nature of this land in a tolerant manner.

5. Fiscal responsibility.

6. Small gov’t.

7. Pro-free enterprise.

8. Deep, deep respect for the original meaning of the Constitution.

Thus being against Border Security violates #1 and #2. So if one were an Open Borders advocate, one would be RINO on that issue.

However, we do not deploy RINO for just one difference. We are not ideological purists.

After all Fred Thompson voted for McCain Feingold which violates #8 rather thoroughly. And most of us Conservatives would have been happy with him.

And Anchoress, although some of us are intemperate, may I suggest that the word you were really looking for is ‘effective’. As in, we told the Establishment not to do this, they rigged the game with liberal states up front, and we still are giving them the radioactive whipping they asked for. We are effective. Your side is justifiably fearful because your side started something they can’t finish.

I would suggest your side seek to compromise now, rather than later. Otherwise we’ll just have to keep being ‘intemperate’.

Recall the 1992 Election wherein the Fiscal Conservatives said “Read Our Ballots, No New Term” to George H. W. “Voodoo Economics” Bush. What happened after Bush lost? Fiscal Conservatives realized that the Reagan Revolution wasn’t dead and that the elitist Blue-blooded Big Government Liberal Republicans really didn’t control the voters. Grass-root Fiscal Conservatives won the House for the Republicans in 1994. No third party needed. Of course the elitist Blue-blooded Big Government Liberal Republicans in the Senate then cut the conservatives in the House off at the knees in the Impeachment hearings but that’s a story for another day.

What we’re seeing play out is a fight between the former “pro-life” Democrats, now called “social conservatives”, and the former conservative Republicans, now called “fiscal conservatives”. There’s a lot of anger directed at the “fiscals” by the “socials” because the “socials” have finally come to realize that they can’t win without the “fiscals” and the “fiscals” have come to realize that they can’t win with the “socials”. The Republicans lost the Senate and the House in 2006 not because Republican sat out the election but because the “fiscals” sat out the election. The vitriol will get worse because the reality of a 50-state landslide loss is sinking in.

FYI – I left the “National Security Conservatives” out of the discussion because their needs are satisfied regardless of which brand of conservatism wins. Currently they’re on the side of the “socials” because their primary objective is a Republican win but they’d be just a happy with a “fiscal” win. Or so I’m inclined to think.

Well maybe you could start by giving us links to examples of conservatives saying that Bolton, North and others are not conservative enough? Try not to link to forums Anchoress. Also you are not allowed to link to any site that has less than 2,000 visits a day. I set the bar low cause I want to see just how audacious you will be about dragging any Tom Dick or Harry you can find. It is hard to imagine how your article got by without such links.

You make much about calling the right wing this or that cute little name but you never deal with issues and the principles that drive those issues. Your side instigated this tempest in a teapot and your side has not yet dealt with the issues. Your side of the aisle doesn’t seem to believe that anything should get in the way of winning. Pragmatism does not guide the right wing. Winning isn’t everything.

Finally because you came over from the Democrats you don’t understand us. So commenting on our behavior at this early stage of your Republicanism is useless except to be divisive. I notice that AJ’s intent is fairly similar, divide instead of uniting. Though he has a much nastier way about him. Democrats as a rule don’t seem to have these big debates about principles. To them winning IS everything. It is not to us. You need to adjust.

Anchoress perhaps you might in the future be more honest about your intent? Instead of writing inflammatory articles throwing bombs declaring that you are wistful for a united Republican party why not be straight forward. Why not in the future say, I came over from the Democratic party and I don’t like a certain wing of the party so I am going to attack them.

I think the CPA is probably necessary at this point, and it will be very interesting to watch the formation of a new party. I think it’s important to broaden some identifiers and distinguish between those who share common values but who disagree on how those values may be expressed through policy. Then, perhaps the “true conservatives” (once again I wish I knew the least insulting way to identify…) could move beyond asserting their identity and the Moderates (Rino’s, CINO’s or whatever) could as well, and then maybe all the yammering can give way to real co-operation in identifying and promoting national candidates.

I think the formation of the CPA can only be a good thing; it will force focus and real exchanges of ideas among people with shared values…who let’s face it, are not playing very nice right now!

Still, after Mitt Romney’s speech that concluded with his withdrawl from the race for the GOP nomination for president, a speech in which Gov. Romney urged his fellow Republicans to unite around front-runner McCain, I decided to give McCain another look.

Frankly, the Anchoress and her like are doing a bang-up job of persuading me that McCain is hopeless.

Larry Rasczak’s remarks are only adding to my distaste for McCain and his apologists. Says Larry, “I do see how it is awfuly hard for someone who’s family has been here since Diego de Vargas took back Santa Fe from the Indians in 1692 to ‘go back home’.”
Gee, if someone’s parents have been in what is now New Mexico for that long, they’re not illegal immigrants. (Duh.) Same goes for Larry’s fretting about “someone who’s family has been in Los Angeles since 1781.” There wasn’t a welfare state in 1781. Larry, to use your own words, you’re “both inaccurate and insulting.”

As for California’s Proposition 187, a majority of us Mexican-Americans who were born here in California voted for it, much to the chagrin of Democrat race-baiters and RINOs like McCain.

If McCain can’t find Americans to pick his lettuce for $50 an hour, he’s not looking hard enough. My US born parents were farm workers, my Dad was a migrant worker, and as I child I worked in the fields as a picker too. Even today, most field laborers harvesting crops on US farms today are US citizens who were born in the USA. Why does Larry Rasczak confuse us with illegals? I suggest Larry contemplate why the State of New Mexico’s automobile license plates are the only ones in America that are marked “USA” after the state’s name. Or have to be.

McCain, go home. And back to your first wife, too.