Many of us who would hold to our principles and not support the liberal candidate the "party leaders" are trying to push on us, are often accused of not seeing the "big picture".

I believe just the opposite is true.

If you truly believe in conservative principles, you have to believe that they are what is best, even necessary, for our country, and for it's very survival.

The Republican party had been the most effective tool for advancing the conservative agenda until the last 6 years or so. We have seen it slide further to the left under it current leadership. This is why we lost in 2006. People had finally had enough.

If we nominate a NE liberal candidate for POTUS, we will have effectively abandoned the base of the party, and embraced liberalism. This will be the destruction of the Republican party as an effective political force, as conservatives cast about for a new home and abandon the GOP. This will also have the effect of causing the party to bolt further to the left in order to pick up liberal votes to replace the loss of nearly 30% of the Republican voting block.

It will take decades to start over from scratch, and build a new conservative party at a national level. And I doubt it could be done soon enough to prevent our nation's slide to pure socialism.
Therefore, I believe that for our nation to survive the The Republican party needs to survive as a conservative party to counter the Dem's and their socialist agenda.

Given that reasoning, we simply cannot nominate a Liberal. It is more important to bring the GOP back to its roots of conservatism even if it means a loss of power.

I was at the Gathering of Eagles today in DC with some of my fellow FReepers.

It was darn cold, but the suffering was worth it to show support to our military, and their Commander in Chief.

Here's some pics. These are not the main rally. A small group of us moved to the traffic circle in front of Arlington National Cemetery.