Forgetting Conservatism: Why the GOP lost

The following articles discuss the GOP's midterm defeat.
George Will argues that the GOP were punished for forgetting conservatism. He contends they are "guilty of apostasy from conservative principles at home (frugality, limited government) and embrace of anti-conservative principles abroad (nation-building grandiosity pursued incompetently)."

And then there is Dick Armey's take, and what Provociferous blog would be fully complete without Mitt Romney's take?


To me, it seems that Conservatives are not content to "just hold seats" as the lesser of two evils. Crazy spending so that Republicans can be 'conservative' on other issues just doesn't fire up the base in a midterm election that has been nationalized to this extent. The GOP had already lost plenty of independents due to "Bush fatigue" but had to go and alienate many in their principled conservative base as well.

Bush and the congressional GOP got 1/2 of the conservative equation correct: They cut taxes. That those taxes work is evidenced by the steady increase in our actual tax revenues. (Yes, I know it's a "crazy" principle: cut taxes and make more money!! The thing is, it is proven to work.) Yet, Congress missed the other half of the conservative equation: restrained spending. Combining the worst of liberalism and the best of conservatism opened the GOP to charges of fiscal irresponsibility.