Lots of good stuff out there today regarding the above issue. I will let Glenn Reynolds cover the basics here. And one of his links includes a great post by Bill at INDC Journal:
I would advise all of my respected socially conservative friends and fellow bloggers to take note: a lurch towards sane national defense and fiscal policy by a charismatic Dem or three (it could happen), coupled with one too many sneering "RINO" jokes from you hard righties, and this moderate - and many like me - are gone. One day we'll simply snap, our better judgment overwhelmed by a wacky sense of humor and stewing anger, and you'll wake up to a nightmarish world where the senior senator from Mass rides into the sunset as SecState and Billary is floating doomed socialized medicine schemes out of the Oval again.
Ok, surely I'm exagerrating about a short-term decision to hand over the executive (after all, the President's the one with his hand on the trigger), but my traitorous ilk and I have little compunction about turning and biting you on midterm elections. I'm certainly willing to ratchet up the tension between the legislative and executive branches, if only to keep Coulterian schtick out of the halls of real power.
And then this:
Conservative control of government shouldn't be a tool to legislate morality, social engineering or lynch-mob populism, rather serve as a lever to further disengage government from unsuccessful bureaucratic equations, let ideas rise and fall in a marketplace of honest debate, and allow decentralized localities to decide the mores and taboos of particular regions.
Yes, yes, yes. If you have read any of my posts on subjects like this you will find I favor a big tent mentality while keeping arguments lively and civil. An example can be found here and this entire subject was something I looked at before the election in September. Interesting that it is just now starting to come to the forefront, or at least enough for it to get some play on the blogosphere. Randy Barnett even takes the line that the Libertarian Party itself is partly responsible for this at The Volokh Conspiracy (hattip to The Corner.) I will be interested in following this as it plays out, but in the end I stand by my big tent theory...but only if it yields a smaller and more manageable government, more freedoms and liberty for the citizens of the country and a strong foreign policy. The minute I cannot trust a party to keep those major ideals, the minute I look around for another. That is all.
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