Neither is this right-wing notion that 'government is the source of our salvation' or 'abortion is good'. Nobody thinks those things, except imaginary people in fevered rightwing minds.

“Nobody” thinks government is their salvation? Ask Peggy Joseph of Sarasota,FL, who gushed that when Obama was in place, she wouldn't have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage.

“Nobody” thinks “Abortion is good”? Ask journalist and bestselling author Joan Ryan, who wrote the following in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 19, 1999:

SIX OF US were having lunch the other day, all women in our late 30s and 40s. The discussion turned to a radio story one woman had heard that morning. The piece quoted women who felt their abortions had been a crime perpetrated on them by society and had felt grief-stricken and demoralized ever since.

Why, my friend asked, do we rarely hear about the women who say they are relieved, the ones who are grateful to be able to finish school, find a job, get married and have children when they were ready to be good mothers? We all nodded but said nothing. Then one woman broke silence. “When I had an abortion,'' she said, “I shook the doctor's hand and said, `Thank you!' ''

We had all been friends for years and none of us knew she had had an abortion.

“I had one, too,'' said another woman. And on around the table. Among the six women, there had been four abortions.

Here was a group of close friends who talked about everything from husbands to bikini waxing to concepts of God. A woman couldn't find a safer group with whom to share her abortion experience. Yet until that lunch, none of us ever had.

Anti-abortionists would say we were ashamed. Not this crowd. The real explanation isn't personal. Though abortion has been a protected legal right for 27 years, women still get the message that there is something so unnatural about terminating a pregnancy that it is not safe even to talk about it.

What women almost never hear is that controlling their reproduction is as old — and in the strictest sense, as natural — as motherhood itself. Some species of mammals reabsorb embryos when the pregnant female detects a shift in the social climate that might endanger her offspring. Pregnant monkeys can spontaneously abort when their social group has been usurped by a new male…

If the only place where people really think such things are in “fevered rightwing minds,” better check your temperature and your voter registration form, because people DO think such things in your world.

You see, government is the imperfect executor of the will of the people. It works well to the extent that The People engage in, pay attention to, and hold accountable their elected officials. It doesn't work when people think of Government as some foreign parasite. The rightwing myth of government-as-parasite is the most insidious idea in modern politics, one that is fundamentally anti-democratic. Yes, anti-democratic. If you think government should go away completely, you're signing up to turn the clock back to the 13th century, before us common citizens had any rights, where there was no obstacles to the rich and powerful having their way all the time, and no chance for you to ever join their ranks.

But in practice, I don't think you really believe what you're saying. Neither do liberals really believe the government should control everything. Really, we just want a limiting force to keep the powerful from working against democracy. It's that simple.

As for Palin, conservative values will only be credible again when conservatives pick a leader who exemplifies them and doesn't just parrot them. Palin is the model of an anti-democratic, non-accountable, non-transparent, self-ordained princess. Good luck getting her to take on her own party's corruption (especially within her own administration) – she just fights against those who stand in her way to the top, and takes credit for it.

The GOP worked long and hard to get me to feel this way about them. For about the first ten years I voted I was a registered independent. Even after Reagan and his promises to balance the budget, slash taxes and increase defense spending. I knew he couldn't do it and didn't appreciate him claiming he could. Also didn't care for Falwell and his Moral Majority and their ties to the GOP. The further to the right they moved the less I liked them. People like you who can actually write that Democrats think abortion is good as opposed to none of the Republican's business which is what choice is about are definitely part of my problem with the GOP. People who claim to believe in small government while knowing how Jesus wants them to run the country and intrude into people's lives are right up there at the top of my list of reasons for not liking the Republican Party.

It is obvious that you belong to the group who sorta doesnt like the GOP. To put it mildly.

What's there to like?

Imperialism, Racism, Social Conservatism, Religious Conservatism and support of big business? Sounds a lot like fascism.

I can’t agree with the author across the board here because there is a definitely valid opinion in GOP circles that the Party has paved its own way into the wilderness precisely because they abandoned their thrifty, fiscal conservative ways.

You're joking? right?

Since Reagan in 1980, the National Debt has gone up every year. Neither Reagan nor the Bushes presented a single balanced budget in their 20 years in the White House.The only president that even attempted to control the debt was Clinton.

Small government sounds really good when you have a job, the economy is booming and you know that if you are laid off, there is another company right down the street ready to hire you at the same or greater wage. It isn't all that popular when the economy is in a recession, lay-off are happening like there is no tomorrow and the odd of you finding a job at the same wage rate if you are laid off is somewhere between slim and nil.

It is obvious that you belong to the group who sorta doesnt like the GOP. To put it mildly.

You call the GOP cultist. Yet using your definition the same can be applied to the Democrats. Cults of personality. Obama. Large Government cult. Tax the rich cult. Government is the source of our salvation cult. Gay rights cult, Abortion is good cult, Get rid of them guns cult………..see I totally disagree with your take on it.

But if you choose to call our beliefs cults then back at cha.

PS – IF a cult is an “instance of great veneration of a person [...] as manifested by a body of admirers” and most would say that in said cult cases most followers are just that, followers who merely follow without any reason, you know, droids, robots, following the herd etc. etc. And when over 68% of Obama supporters/voters cannot name the correct majority party in the house and senate, and when the ruling factor in an election is the minority and youth vote (who a majority of both claim they voted for Obama to say “they were a part of something historical” without actually looking at what Obama has to offer), THEN (Yes, Jim it is time for the “THEN” portion of this “IF, THEN” statement) I would argue that the largest cult in recent history is the, how would you put it Jim? The “Obama is Jesus” cult? Or the “Bill Maher” cult? How about the “Big Government” cult? Or the “Socialist” cult? Or the “Raise taxes” cult. I'm not nearly as clever as you Jim, nor do I prescribe to any liberal cults, so maybe you could help me out with this one.

But unlike Obama, there was no blinding patina of impressive mannerisms to caulk over the flaws and cracks.

How about…there was no intelligence, no broad range of knowledge and not nearly enough competence for the office of VP, much less President? That provided a sharp contrast between her and Obama and yes, many people just saw that contrast and didn't join some cult of personality.

Republicans do have cults besides Palin. There's the Rush Limbaugh Cult. There's the “America is a Christian Nation” Cult. There's the Free Market Cult. There's the Small Government Cult. There's the Tax Cut Cult. There's the “Government Is Evil” Cult. Above all, there is the Reagan Cult. What Republican doesn't belong to a cult, anyway?

I think the only thing more depressing than reading that is realizing that it's true. There's no need to get any better if all you have to do is wait a few years for the opponents to screw up. Then you'll get your chance to go back and and screw up in entirely new ways.

*sigh*

The democrats got beat down and they did not change. The only thing they really changed is who gets to frame the debate.

They won cause the GOP screwed the pooch.

Now that the Democrats are in power. They will screw the pooch and in 2-4 years the voters will be begging the GOP back into power. Its simplicy. Democrats are stupid, stupid, stupid politicians. Republicans are stupid, stupid, stupid politicians. Neither one needs to change. They just need for the other group to get into power.

BTW, genuine fiscal conservatives are only a fraction of the voting base of the GOP. Social conservatives – whether Christian conservatives, law-and-order conservatives, racial conservatives or just Nixonish anti-elite cultural conservatives – are far more important to the GOP's winning coalition. Fiscal conservatism only worked as a winning strategy with social conservatives when the beneficiary of governmental largesse could be identified as undeserving poor minorities. There's a reason Karl Rove pushed his big government conservatism agenda. It worked in 2004. What failed the GOP was not the abandonment of fiscal conservatism but sheer incompetence in Iraq and Katrina. As for the actual fiscal conservative voters turned off by Bush, most are social liberals who see no place for themselves in the GOP anymore.