The 2008 presidential race is shaping up to be a contest between liberals and centrists. In other terms, true liberals vs faux conservatives.Only two GOP candidates can truly claim the conservative label and neither of them appear to have a snowball's chance in Ecuador of winning the nomination. The remainder of the group doesn't have a clue about why Republicans lost big in 2006 and what conservatism means.
In 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan annihilated the liberals. Total landslides. In 1988, George H. W. Bush rode the Reagan wave and won 40 states over Michael Dukakis. But H. W. veered left from the Reagan philosophy and was handed his head in 1992 by Bill Clinton.
In 1994, after just two years of Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress, Americans had had enough. Republicans, under the leadership of the conservative Newt Gingrich, took control of both houses of Congress for the first time in approximately 40 years.
After Gingrich was booted conservative leadership failed. So did the GOP. Republicans began losing seats in both houses. When George W. Bush was elected with a Republican majority in both houses, it appeared that a new day was dawning and America could finally be righted. Wrong. Republicans were timid, weak, and lacked the chutzpah to get the job done. As a result, they were tossed out of office in 2006.
This is where the problem begins. Candidates like John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney think that Americans voted the GOP out because they didn't work with the Democrats. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They apparently learned nothing from 1994 and 2006. They are all centrists, moderates, and RINOs, and sound more like libs than Republicans.
They can claim the conservative label if they want but the proof is in the pudding.