Slate: Opinion: Dave Weigel: Sarah Palin vs. Beltway Republicans: Conservative in America 2014

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If Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin are the faces of Conservatism in America in 2014, then we might as well start planning its funeral and Liberals can declare victory in this ongoing ideological war of some 50 years now. The only two Conservatives at CPAC last weekend were Senator Rand Paul and former U.S. Senator/actor/talk show host/commercial spokesperson, whatever the hell Fred Thompson is up to now. But the rest of them, including Ann Coulter, who came down from Mars to give a speech about the so-called “browning of America,” are all out to lunch at an all-you-can-eat- for-50-cents buffet and couldn’t give an accurate description of Conservatism and what it means to be a Conservative to save their lives.

The far right of the Republican Party thinks the government is not too big when it comes to our personal lives, actually too small.  This wing of the GOP is alive and well with plenty of spokespeople for it like Senator Santorum and Ann Coulter, the Neoconservatives, which I and others call them. But anytime someone in the GOP seeking national recognition tries to run to the left of the far Right, which is where most of the country is no matter how far to the left of the far Right they are, they are put down by the Neo-Cons and labeled liberal or socialist.

2014 could’ve been the year that Governor Chris Christie took the reigns of the conservative movement and used it to launch his 2016 presidential campaign, but as it looks now, he might have a better shot at watching Election Night 2016 from jail than running for president at this point, let alone being elected President because of his corruption issues in a State, New Jersey, that may have invented political corruption. Actually, right now, New Jersey is competing with Illinois and Louisiana for the title of most corrupt State in America.

If there is a face of Conservatism in America, it would be Rand Paul, but again, the far Right is not going to allow a Conservative Libertarian, who is a Federalist on both economic policy and social policy, to be their GOP nominee for President. As long as the GOP needs a base that still believes it is 1955 and didn’t bother to grow up and modernize like the rest of the country, they won’t have that one national candidate who can bring the party together.