We love your input and hope that you continue as one of our readers and commentors. After all blogging is a numbers game like all other media businesses but please remember as a conservative site we are not capable of selling out Hershberger since we never supported him in the first place. I know some days it is hard to distinguish this site from an official party page but there are actually some subtle differences.

A few argued that national trends killed you, not your candidates or ideology. Did you ever stop to think that:

a) the national trend is a shift of ideology away from conservatism as you all define it?

b) that the national trend you speak of will be even worse for Republicans in 2008?

The big issue here is that your willingness to back a Melvin over a Hershberger is principal, but the kind of principle that will make you a minority party for many many years to come.

People right now are looking for pragmatic solutions to our economy, national and international affairs. They see the deficits you all run up in the name of freedom and how your party attacks any kind of social spending in the same breath. They see your interest and zeal for trashing members of your own party who dare to work with Democrats on issues, they also see the corruption, which continues…and the moral bankruptcy of this party that continually evokes God and Country while having its elected officials (Zitter???) do the opposite.

You won’t win in 2008…not if you sell out Hershberger like you did Hellon.

From now on, I think we should reference the Tim Scale instead of having debates over if someone is or isn’t a conservative. Tim, you do not get extra points in the debate for printing the scale. Sorry. But, in case GOP PK and I cannot agree, you can be the tie breaker. Geez Louise, what did I just set myself up for!?

Thanks again, Tim.

A fantastic synopsis.- just delete mine on this subject, yours is so much better!

Can I have license to use it in other arenas?

Allen is liberal on social issues (guns, marriage, abortion, school choice, etc.) which is to say that she favors government over the individual, is pro-abortion (extremely so including opposition to parental notification, consent, etc. and was a board member of Planned Parenthood), etc.

Allen is liberal on fiscal issues in that she almost always opposes tax cuts and supports higher spending.

She is openly hostile to her own caucus, campaigning against them in 2006. She takes the conservative position on virtually NO issue. She used to be good on guns but even there her voting record has gone in the toilet over the last 3-4 years.

Liberal on everything = Liberal

Ron Gould? Conservative on everything = Conservative

Are you liberal on virtually everything but good on one or two things? Like, if Allen was still good on guns? Still liberal.

Are you conservative on virtually everything but bad on one or two things? Say like Jonathan Paton, who is pretty reliable on most things but really sucks on school choice? You could still be conservative.

Are you in the middle? A moderate? Like a Tim Bee who is just decent on spending but doesn’t fight for tax cuts? Supports convention centers in Phoenix so long as Tucson gets one too? A porker, but not as offensive a porker as a Bill Konopnicki? You spend too much but you don’t meet in back rooms with Democrats to plot strategy on how to screw your own caucus like Jennifer Burns? You are conservative on many social issues (as Bee is) while your connections to local school districts lead you to an anti-school choice position (as Bee has)? Well then, if you’ve got a genuine mix of conservative and liberal positions, then you end up considered a moderate.

Want to score it? That seems to work well. Think of it as a 100 point score. 100 is the best, conservative on everything. Most people will never score that! 0 is the worst, liberal on everything. Most people will never score that either! Let’s say 75 and up is conservative, 60-74 is center-right, 41-59 is moderate, 26-40 is center-left, and 25 and less is liberal.

Work for you? You’ll find Carolyn Allen, Jennifer Burns, Pete Hershberger and a few others scoring 25 or less. You’ll find Ron Gould, Jack Harper, Russell Pearce, Karen Johnson and quite a few others scoring 75 or more. I’m not sure about Bee, but he’ll be in the 55-70 range, so more likely center-right than straight moderate.

Lastly, I would point out that there really isn’t a moderate ideology on issues. You are either protecting the individual (conservative) or not (liberal). You are either growing government and reducing freedom (liberal) or shrinking government and increasing freedom (conservative). You are either protecting families and our moral and national fabric (conservative) or not (liberal). Your overall voting record might be considered moderate because it is a mix of conservative and liberal votes. But there are no moderate votes. Its like being a little bit pregnant. You either voted right or wrong. You get to vote Yes or No, not Maybe or Sometimes.

Several groups have scorecards which you can use to help you categorize folks. On social issues there is CAP, the Arizona Family Project, Planned Parenthood, and a gay group whose name I can’t remember (GLAD?). On tax issues there is the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers. On gun issues there are several groups including the NRA, GOA, ASRPA and others. You know which groups lean conservative or liberal, so if all of the conservative groups have Pete Hershberger and Carolyn Allen ranked at the bottom, you know you’re dealing with liberals. If they all have Ron Gould or Jack Harper at the top, then you’re talking about conservatives.

Long enough answer for you? I hope so, ’cause I’m exhausted!

Most self-proclaimed moderates are really liberals in my opinion, it is just that the term almost has become as derogatory as, to use a term you use, RINO in the politically correct world and they do not wish to be called a liberal.

Some self-proclaimed conservatives are really moderates, in my opinion, as they are only conservative on fiscal issues, for instance. I would call them fiscal conservatives, but to be called conservative as an overall description, I think that it should not be only about part of the person.

Other people have a different measuring stick and there is no absolute right or wrong, it is the personal perception as to how to apply the term.

I will disagree with their perception and do so strongly at times, but there is no strict dictionary definition that can be absolutely applied to people that all will agree with.

Thanks!

Those five are the five most liberal Republicans in the entire State Legislature. There is nothing moderate about them. They are liberals, period.

That is where your left-leanings make conversation difficult. You want us to call liberals moderates but we won’t. That’s for the Red Star and the Arizona Repugnant to do. There are moderate Republicans in the legislature (Tim Bee for instance) and neither PK nor anyone else is trashing them for being moderates. But liberal Republicans who are actively working against their own caucus do not deserve your protection.

And they don’t deserve to be promoted to moderates, no matter how badly you want to win the argument.

All you have are conspiracy theories about liberal Republicans who are supposedly undermining your right-wing brethren. The civil war in your party is in your mind for the most part, except that you on the far right have the whip hand most of the time and it is the dwindling pack of moderates and liberals in the GOP that must deal with your exclusive practices. Even Jon Kyl and Trent Lott get skewered if they stray off the reservation.

I will admit, however, that you will see many more common sense Republicans voting for Democrats if you continue to nominate people like Melvin and Munsil. That doesn’t mean that they are openly campaigning for Democrats, as you assert, but it does imply that extremists can’t demand blind loyalty from the party faithful when it comes to their votes. Conversely, can you honestly tell me that you will vote for Hershberger if he is the GOP nominee in LD26? What about the other moderates you trashed in Post #18? Where is YOUR loyalty?

So I gave you a long list of high profile Republicans who did so from only one website, and now you are sniveling and changing the criteria because you got it handed to you in spades and don’t like it and won’t deal with it.

That is your problem. The facts are the facts and there are lots of other instances, however, since you won’t give validity to the information from the public domain that has been presented, why should anyone bother giving you more data.

You belong in the Democrat Party where the facts are inconvenient truths to be ignored or morphed into Newspeak 1984.

Have a good day. If you ever muster up the courage or integrity to admit when someone has proven that your position was wrong, I’ll blog again with you, but until then, it is a waste of time.

Were Hellon’s folks working against Melvin as well?