Looking over the current crop of Republican candidates, I'm trying to decide which of my ideologies I value the least. I guess I could vote for Rudy Giuliani and sell out my belief in the people's right to own guns. Or I could vote for Mitt Romney and get the proto-Hillary Care that he's proposing. Or maybe I could vote for McCain and welcome in every hostile foreigner that wants in.

The funny part is that if any of these people get elected odds are I'll end up selling out ALL of my ideologies.

Seriously though. George Bush has spent the last seven years trying to bring a "new tone" to Washington. And that "new tone" is try to make friends out of the rabid, uncompromising left wing. And thus Bush has given them all kinds of things in an attempt to make friends. He let Ted Kennedy write the Education bill back in the early days. Bush signed the precious "Campaign Finance Reform" law that the Left (and John McCain) demanded and now ignore. He Unionized baggage screeners to create a brand new liberal voting block for Democrats. He didn't fire ALL of the Federal lawyers when he took office (like Bill Clinton did). And of course, he has pushed relentlessly for Amnesty for Illegals.

Now has any of this attempt at bridge building worked? No it hasn't. In fact, I'm sure that my lib readers are sneering as they read this and giving cute retorts to their computer screens.

So the lesson is clear - who cares what libs think? If you get elected by the conservative base, you go out and fight for your conservative ideas. And you squish anyone who gets in your way. The real reason the Republican is not excited is because none of the current crop of candidates acts like they're going to fight for us. The front runner is from New York City for god's sake. The ONLY people who get elected in NYC are left of center at best. Other tough talking candidates were met with a great deal of fanfare and excitement only to turn around, drop all their ideas for the sake of "compromise" (see the Gubinator in California.)

I guess some would argue that Republicans are fighting, it's just the media that won't tell us about it - but I don't buy this. Remember the Amnesty fight? I've never seen a group of people fight so hard AGAINST THEIR OWN BASE. It was a massive struggle that continues to this day. Even as recently a few weeks ago Congress is still trying to get amnesty slipped by.

The real reason for the loss in '06 is that the Republicans cannibalized themselves. It's not like they didn't know Amnesty was unpopular - some Republicans went back to their home districts to find themselves suddenly running in tight primaries. Campaign contributions to the party went down the toilet.

If only they had fought this hard for tax cuts! If only they had battled this ardently for school choice or the social security overhaul!

Instead they rolled over and died at the first sign of Democrat resistance.

I'm still flabbergasted as to why they didn't go after Democrat Representative William Jefferson of New Orleans. You remember him, he's the guy who used military vehicles in the Katrina aftermath to go pick up his bribe money from his house. The FBI had a warrant to search the guy's office cause he was dirty. But the Republicans *circled the wagons around this guy.* Part of their defense was due to the fact that they wanted to play nice with their coworkers on the left side of building.

But it didn't win them any friends there either did it?

The Republican party was founded on the principle of NOT compromising with political enemies. Abraham Lincoln once said that they had compromised and compromised and compromised with the slave states - yet the slave states were still not happy (thus no more compromise). I think we need more of this today.

Jeremy Meister graduated with a B.S. in History from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1998 and a B.S. in Media Production from Missouri State University at Springfield in 2005. He is also a film director, producer and author of over seven feature length screenplays including 'Hollow Dogs' and 'Epic: the Autumn Gales', as well as owning his own film company: the famous LWC Productions. Jeremy is the former host and producer of the Conservative internet radio program "The Tzimisce Show". Presently he is working behind the scenes at Lotus Broadcasting on such shows as "The Mr. Sunshine Show" with occasional work for HBO and UFC. Contact him at LWC_Productions@hotmail.com or at www.myspace.com/tzimiscechi. For a complete list of blogs check out: http://tzimisce.townhall.com/

Art for the people: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1888382/posts