but the key point I want to make is that conservatism is due for a rebirth, and it will involve the dogmatic application of blunt arguments like CutTaxes or SmallGovt. It will instead require a rethinking of solutions to the modern issues of teh day, by applying the core principles – freedom, opportunity, culture – and be willing to break with orthdoxy of the past if thats where the principles lead them.

There are indeed conservatives who are breaking ground along these lines – for whom RINO might well be a badge of honor, since Republican is no longer Conservative by any remote standard. I’ve got a list of a few right here.

Conservative elitists will be clutching their chests when I dare list these names together, but Milton Friedman (Free to Choose), Henry Hazlitt (Economics in One Lesson), Friedrich Hayek (Road to Serfdom), and Thomas Paine (Common Sense) have a lot in common with Limbaugh and Beck.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Brain-dead-conservatives-Are-conservative-elitists-brain-dead-63481997.html

y r consrvs so dum? 10yrs ago they were gr8. Beck < WFB. Hannity FTL. Only answrs are jesus or market lol

Was the movement ever dominated by “stellar intellectual thinkers”? I don’t really recall a time when that was the case. I’m sure there are stellar intellectuals in the movement now, but they don’t tend to be very effective politically, which is what we need at the moment. I suspect your objection to the Limbaughs, etc, is at least as much an objection to style as intellect. Do you think running our government based on the ideas of a leftist intellectual would be preferable to running the government based on the ideas of, say, Glenn Beck? If so, why? If not, then what practical difference does it make whether there are any stellar intellectuals involved? For that matter, why is Beck not a “stellar intellectual thinker”?

You also seem to come from a basic premise that conservatives need to have a plan to “do something” when they take power. Some of us believe restricting government to things it should be involved in, and ending it’s involvement in those it shouldn’t is “doing something”, as is blocking legislation that runs counter to that objective. Do you think we need more laws?

My biggest problem right now is that I can’t stand Obama, but that has not translated into loving conservatism. Now, while that equation might not seem terribly problematic in itself, and it might even constitute remarking the obvious, there’s an……

There is already an ideology that prides itself on it’s appeal to pseudo-intellectual elites and sneering at Walmart shopping mainstream Americans. It’s called “liberalism.” We don’t need two of those, one of them is dismantling this country fast enough.

The “Contract With America” was a brilliant approach, and while I don’t think it would work to duplicate it (not because it couldn’t work, but because the media and the liberal “intelligentsia” would sneer that it was tried and failed) a new approach with the same fundamental approach but branded differently definitely could work.

… and I think that is probably precisely what Sarah Palin is trying to do. Good for her.

It really would take a generation to just pare down the rot. As a nice side effect, what is left would be much better government because it would be more understandable, more effective, and would be auditable because to survive, every program would have had to have passed multiple audits.

There, simple, popular, completely consistent with both social conservative and economic conservative beliefs, and a generational goal. It really isn’t that hard to create a popular conservative platform which can win elections and serve as a practical platform for running the government.

The time for something like that to be unveiled is some time in 2010 as the election is gearing up. Right now is the time to try to slow down the damage that is coming fast and furious from Reid, Pelosi, and Obama.