Bush is a moderate. If he was truly conservative fiscally he would be nailed to a cross and fed to the media lions...If he wouldn't surely get a knife in the back for demanding spending cuts, he would. It is fear by the party that prevents him. No matter how you slice it the Democrats would be spending more, NOT LESS, than Bush.

Bush is definitely not a real conservative. He's some unfortunate mix of militarist, religious-rightist, idealist, and panderist (sorry for abusing the English language).

I'd like a genuine fiscal conservative. If one came along who was pragmatic rather than ideological on social issues, I'd vote for him/her. Alas, the process of Republican primaries will weed out such a candidate.

Not sure we'll see a Democratic candidate to my liking either. Their primary election process is also messed-up. Sigh.

You're so right. This is partially what we get for allowing the government to intervene in party politics, let me explain.

Long ago now, the parties really did meet locally, statewide, and nationally to choose candidates in the historical smoked filled back rooms. That's a process that weed's out those that are just a pretty face but haven't actually worked within the party. The candidates debt was to the party, not PAC's. The PAC's had to deal with the party heirarchy. I thnk a return to that would be an improvement, but only slight.

Another improvement is to throttle off much of the money that flows into government through taxes. As the federal government taxing power was increased through the 16th Amendment, it's participaition in foreign military adventures ramped up by several magnitudes, it didn't have the money prior to these new found funding methods. Also, we need to prohibit the federal government giving money to any other political entity, and through that, bribing state and local government to act in the interest of the federal government.

Repealing the 17th Amendment slloeinh the direct election of US senators is also a priority to regain control of the federal monster.

We need a smaller government is all areas; local, state, and federal; and less of everything each of them does for and to us.