Yes reports of the death of conservatism (so gleefully touted by certain bloggers and pundits) are greatly exaggerated.  What was rejected in 2006 and 2008 was “compassionate conservatism” which is liberalism in a different colored suit. Why vote for a pseudo liberal when you can vote for the real deal? The vast majority of the times when the public is offered a choice between a loony leftist (not counting obviously whacko places like Vermont,  San Francisco, etc.) and a level headed, non hardcore ideological, conservative who wants to keep taxes low, promotes individual freedom, keeping government small but efficient, religious freedom, spending controlled, criminals pursued and our streets safe, a color-blind society with no preferences for any special interest group, appointing judges who do not legislate from the bench, and our country safe – the conservative will win. The problem has been the GOP Establishment which continues to foist people such as John McCain, Colin Powell, Poppy Bush on the party and the false perception that the Bible thumpers such as Mike Huckabee (a phony populist) and Pat Robertson (permanently stuck on stupid) call the shots (which if the Religious Right really did we never would have wound up with a McCain).

by Andrew Foy and Brenton Stransky

In the wake of Scott Brown’s historic Senate run, we would like to put the last eighteen months of politics into perspective and summarize what the Massachusetts race means for the future of conservatism. Despite what may be written in the Liberal press, this race represents much more than just a case of a “good” candidate versus a “bad” candidate, and it is far more profound than a case of “populism and anti-establishment tensions run amok.” What this race means for the country is simple, and its results can be summarized as a clear refutation of the liberal agenda in favor of the conservative position.

If the above thesis is correct, then we must answer the following question: “If the liberal agenda is being so clearly refuted in favor of the conservative position, then why did Democrats win so handily in the 2006 and 2008 elections?” We think the answer is clear. In 2006 and 2008, the Democrats didn’t win by running a liberal agenda against a conservative agenda; they won by running squarely against a president and party whose policies were neither popular nor conservative.

Bush and his Republican administration greatly expanded the power of government along with the welfare state, doubled the national budget, doubled the deficit, signed the largest entitlement bill since the 1960s, regulated carbon dioxide as a “pollutant,” signed Sarbanes-Oxley and the steel tariffs, helped promote the expansion of huge federally-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in order to appear “compassionate” to people who needed home loans — and when the housing market inevitably crashed due to years of poor government policies, he proposed hundreds of billions in federal aid to various private and public entities and handed out billions in economic “stimulus” checks.

Under the above conditions, it is reasonable to ask, “How could a candidate running in opposition to these policies lose?” We don’t think he could, unless he advocated for an agenda even more radical than and to the left of the above policies. After the 2008 presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama, multiple pundits proudly claimed that “conservatism is dead.” However, unlike the aforementioned pundits, we did not view the 2008 presidential race as a battle between conservative and liberal policies, with liberalism/progressivism ultimately winning the battle of ideas. To the contrary, such a battle was never fought at all.

The 2008 election contest was really decided on the day the markets crashed. At once, Obama and the Democrats squarely pointed the finger of blame at Bush, the Republicans, and the policies mentioned above. At the time, it did not matter what was the exact mechanism which caused the housing collapse and subsequent market crash. It did not matter whether the Bush policies were conservative or not. It did not matter how much Democratic policies played into the mix (in a previous article, we outlined how policies initiated under the Clinton White House laid the foundation for the collapse). The public was deeply concerned with the economic situation, and it was quite natural under those circumstances to gravitate toward the party not in power. Further, Barack Obama ran on a very moderate agenda and on some issues (e.g., deficit reduction), he could have been viewed as conservative. Barack Obama and the Democrats offered change, and under the conditions at the time, “change” sounded damned good. McCain offered the same thing, but with less charisma and less legitimacy, considering his ties to the previous administration. Under these conditions, McCain and the Republicans lost, and conservatism was written off as dead.

What a difference a year makes!

Read the rest here.