(UPDATED FOR CORRECTIONS)
The Republican Establishment (especially in the Senate) have no idea how close they came to losing their conservative base. Oh, they may have finally come around after yesterday's vote to kill that joke of an immigration bill. But I really don't think they know how badly they played out this whole thing. If it weren't for the likes of Senators Sessions, DeMint, Cornyn, Vitter, as well as a decent number of conservative House members, there may well have been a mass exodus from the Republican Party by concerned conservative voters.
A bit of background about myself --- up until 1992, I was a registered Democrat. I was a Democrat-in-name-only (DINO) because, unfortunately, living in Philadelphia at the time meant that Republicans have practically no voice or influence. In the main elections, though, I voted for the likes of Reagan and Bush Sr.
My last vote as a registered Democrat was in the '92 Democratic Presidential Primary. I was already keen on the Clinton nightmare that was to come if he became president, so I voted for Jerry Brown as a protest vote (it helped that he also voiced a flat-tax plan). Immediately after that primary I changed my affiliation to the Republican Party.
But, unlike some people in politics, I'm a principles-over-party kind of guy. Others are party-over-principles types. Sorry... I just don't drink that Kool-Aid. If the Republicans in the Senate had allowed that ill-conceived immigration to pass and President Bush signed it, I was seriously thinking of leaving the Republican Party.
No, I was not going to go back to the Democrats (they're even worse). I was going to remain a Republican until I could vote for either Duncan Hunter or Fred Thompson in the presidential primary, and then I was going to switch my affiliation to the Constitution Party. I'm not a fan of their isolationist stance in their party platform, but the vast majority of their positions are the closest to my conservative views on issues. I would, obviously, still vote for any good conservative candidate in the main elections from whatever party they may be affiliated.
Call me what you want, but that's how frustrated I was with the Republican Party. And I would hazard a guess that there are a LOT more conservatives out there who have similar feelings.
There needs to be a committed return to the conservative principles that were the foundation of Reagan in the 80s and the Congressional Republicans of '94:
* Continue lowering taxes (especially for the middle class)
* Serious & streamlined tax reform
* Serious and real reductions in spending (that means spending actually being less than previous years)
* Strong national defense/military
* Effective prosecution of the global war against Islamic terrorists
* Secure the borders (that means building the full fence, new detection & surveillance technologies, and a marked increase in the number of border agents patrolling all points of entry)
* Real immigration reform without amnesty (see previous post for details on this issue)
* Aggressive prosecution of businesses that break the laws (from Enron-types to those that hire illegal immigrants)
* Reduction in the overabundance of regulations
* Free but fair and equitable trade with other countries (including China)
* Open up ANWAR, and the Pacific & Gulf coasts to drilling and build new refineries
* Expanding aggressive, results-based R&D in alternative energy sources
* Serious reduction of our dependence on foreign (especially Middle Eastern) oil
* Continued federal judicial appointments in the mold of Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Alito & Roberts (Federal Appeals Courts as well as U.S. Supreme Court)
and, of course, last but most certainly not least...
* Firmly and consistently Pro-Life and Pro-Family (on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, gay marriage, etc.)
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