Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again By W. James Antle III

Republicans found the 2006 midterm elections unwinnable for three basic reasons. The Democratic base was energized, the Republican base was dispirited, and independents swung heavily toward the Democrats. If all three of these things remain true this year, 2008 won't look much better. But what if you can't solve the third problem by fixing the second?

Conservatives initially argued that the Republicans lost their majorities because President Bush and other GOP elected officials failed to act like conservatives. As Republican frontrunner-of-the-week John McCain likes to put it, "We went to Washington to change Washington, but it changed us." There's more than a kernel of truth in such observations. But other conservatives noticed that Republican red meat wasn't resonating with swing voters as it once did and began to contemplate a more frightening possibility: that they had run out of things to say that the persuadable portion of the electorate wanted to hear.

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