The Thrill Is Gone

Today in Rankin County and throughout the rest of the state the Republican Party caucuses were held. At 10AM, you'd meet at your precincts to elect delegates to the county convention. The county convention, which would meet at 3PM, would elect delegates and alternates to the state convention plus elect members to the party executive committee.

I showed up at my precinct at 9:55AM. I waited twenty minutes and nobody else showed up. I elected myself as a delegate to the county convention. I later met a friend and he was the only one to show up at his precinct. He also elected himself as a delegate. But neither one of us decided to go to the county convention.

I just didn't have the ambition to go to the convention. The reason? I no longer care. The thrill is gone. I don't even plan to help the Republican Party one iota this year. So why should I show up for the convention? Why should I work my tush off for John McCain when he has betrayed every conservative belief known to the conservative movement? Why should I even VOTE for him when there is not much difference between him and the two Democrats running?

The GOP used to stand for something. During Reagan, it stood for rock-solid conservatism and it had no problems on taking on liberalism. Now, you'd be hard-pressed to tell me the difference between the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration when it comes to fiscal and tax policy. Sure, there were differences on the social issues, but that was it. My friends at www.cottonmouth.blogspot.com think Bush is some wild-eyed conservative. Bush is perhaps one of the most liberal Presidents when it comes to spending and foreign adventures. His idiotic war in Iraq is counter to the Old Right Conservative philosophy of foreign entanglements.

My friends at www.cottonmouth.blogspot.com probably think the GOP and conservatism are one and the same. NOT TRUE!!! I was a Republican because I felt the GOP was the only vehicle for conservatism. But after eight years of Bush and six years of a Republican Congress, I found out how untrue that was. It was under Bush and a GOP Congress that we got another drug entitlement. And pork spending reached unprecedented levels.

I get sick and tired of the GOP telling me, "If you don't vote for McCain, you'll have a liberal Democrat in there for four years with a Democratic Congress to run havoc over the nation." Well, so be it. In fact, I'd rather have Obama in the White House than McCain. At least Obama is a flaming liberal and the US will find out what unvarnished liberalism is all about. If they want flaming liberalism, let's give it to the American people. Like Jimmy Carter, there will be such a backlash conservatives will make gains in the off-year elections and the 2012 elections. McCain would be a disaster, but the American people will identify conservatism with the GOP. It would set the conservative movement back a generation if McCain was President.

I have talked to scores of my conservative friends and not one of them is going to lift a finger to help McCain. And most of them will NOT vote for him. So let me tell the GOP this and they better get it through their very thick hides: You may not win with us movement conservatives. 1964 showed that. BUT YOU CANNOT WIN WITHOUT US. 1976, 1992, and 1996 showed that. Indeed, the GOP lost Congress in 2006 because conservatives switched to the Democrats or stayed home. You can count on us not to do a thing for McCain.

Do you think we are bluffing? We are not in politics for profit or to get patronage. We are in politics because of our political ideals. In 1976, GOP poobahs thought we'd get over Reagan's losing the GOP nomination to Gerald Ford and we'd all work our tushes off for Ford just like we did for Reagan. Well, we told them what to do with themselves and we didn't give a rat's Pattie if Ford lost to the peanut warehouser. We just sat back and did other things. The GOP was very hard pressed to get volunteers to man phone banks and walk the precincts. Ford lost because we conservatives didn't lift a finger for him. Expect a repeat in 2008.

Republican Party hacks and party poobahs who are in it for power and political gain, get this through your very thick skulls on how we movement conservatives feel: The GOP stands for nothing, believes in nothing, honors nothing, justifies nothing, exhorts nothing, cherishes nothing, and essentially does nothing.

Exactly what you will get from us movement conservatives.