Where are the Conservatives?

While on vacation I read an article in the USA Today (only thing available in print) concerning the fact that there was no real voice for the Republican party. No one recognized as the leader of the party. When a poll was conducted asking who spoke for the party the top responses were, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney , John McCain and Newt Gingrich. After the obligatory deriding comments concerning old, white, male conservatives, the article actually has a good point: where is the leader of the party? Who is it? What do they stand for? What does the party really stand for? They point out that of the top four mentioned in the poll, only one actually now holds office, McCain, and he just lost the Presidential election.

No real surprise that there is a lack of leadership amongst the Republicans. What was somewhat surprising to me though, was a Gallup Poll also released last week. The poll was on political ideology, what did people think they were? The result:

Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. Gallup

Not only that, but unbeknown to me, these have been fairly consistent results since at least 1992. It regularly shows results of 40% or better conservative and 20% or less liberal. That being the case, how do we explain the fact that we now have elected the most liberal government, Executive and Legislative, in the history or our country? To answer that I think you have to look at a couple issues:

1. First, the USA Today is pretty much right: there is no true leader stepping up and representing the beliefs and values of the traditional Republican voter. John McCain became the face of the party during the Presidential election, and lost. I think one of the main reasons he lost was because he did not truly represent what his party considers to be important. My opinion is that he added Sarah Palin to the ticket so that he could have a true conservative voice. Dick Cheney and former President Bush do a good job of articulating conservative thought and ideals, but they have no vested interest in the future and no direct input in to current policy decision making. The same can be said for Newt Gingrich: he is perhaps the most seen conservative activist lately and does a good job of voicing the conservative line. I do, however, wonder about his motivations. Is he considering running for office again, or is he just selling books and website subscriptions. But who, that is currently in office, is standing up and taking the high ground?
2. Are their any true conservatives with the will to fight for their beliefs left in elected office? My belief is that the reason John McCain became the Presidential nominee for the party is that the conservative vote was split between Romney and Huckabee: McCain got the fallout. Similar to the reason that Clinton was able to get into office. Given a clear choice between moderate and conservative, a large number of the conservative vote ended up going to Ross Perot. Remember, Clinton never received a majority of the votes in either of his elections, just more than second place. The point is, the current Republican leadership are politicians first and conservatives second. They are more concerned about keeping their jobs by saying what they think people want to hear (and looking good for the media) than standing on principle.
3. We also have to look at how people define liberal and moderate. My feeling is that a large percentage of those that say they are moderate are really liberal at heart. If you breakdown the issues and find out where they stand the pattern will start to become clear. They do not want to be stereotyped as a "liberal", so they call themselves moderate. But when it comes time to vote they are going to vote for more government and less freedom.
   
4. Lastly, you have to consider the overwhelming media (especially television) bias against conservatives. The only place a Republican (much less a conservative) is going to get a fair shot at air time is on Fox News. So, we really do not get a chance to hear from the Republicans on what they are doing, what fights they are taking on, what positions and beliefs they might be standing up for. The only real time they get air time is when they have either compromised their beliefs and sided with the Democrats, or when they have screwed up. Then they are either hailed for their courageous break from their party, or excessively demonized.
   

The point I am trying to make is that there is apparently a true conservative majority among US citizens. But, they are obviously not voting Republicans into office. In my mind, this means that the Republicans are no longer representative of conservatism. If someone would be brave and stand up and clearly articulate conservative values, and fight for them, they would be elected.

Just do some research on Ronald Reagan: Openly conservative; clearly stated vision; elected in two landslides. Reagan carried more than 90% of the electorate in both 1980 and 1984. There has been only one other candidate to come close to Reagan's impressive 1984 margin of 97.6% of the electorate; the also staunchly conservative Richard Nixon with 96.7% in 1972.

In case you are curious: there has been only one Democrat elected with over 90% of the electorate since Roosevelt was elected in '36 - Lyndon Johnson with 90.6% over Barry Goldwater in '64 after Kennedy's assassination.