“Perhaps if we felt the Boehner and McConnell were simply better at this we would like them better. If we believed their assessments of when to cut our losses and when to make a sudden grab, we might shrug it off that they are not core conservatives.”

Yes. I have said this before to claims that republicans leaders are just being shrewd. Their strategery can’t be as poor as it seems, I conclude that their objectives are different than stated.

But yet, with much help from the Bush and Son, they did make steady progress. Which is largely my point, in many ways having people like Bush run the party is worse that letting the democrats win, because at least when the democrats win the republican put up a token fight to the liberal agenda from the administration. When the liberal administration is run by a republican, republicans on the hill go along.

As for conservative traitors, there’s a new meme around the internet called the “cuckservative”.

Meaning, a cuckhold, slightly different from a RINO due to the context.

That’s like thinking KKK Kleagle Byrd would be conservative cause he’s Southern.

That’s not the way progressives look at it.

They did not consider the Reagan years a time of steady gains on the political front, nor much of the Clinton years, when the fainthearted among them must have thought liberalism was dead.

I even remember reading many articles to that effect at the time.

Progressives never lost heart.

You’d have a point if, during these 25 years, the GOP didn’t champion bigger government, if they did actually pass “progressive” measures while they were in power to show that they were compassionate conservatives (not those knuckle dragging southern racist hicks), if they weren’t so consistently transparent in their contempt for real conservatives. It’s no wonder the progressives are patient, they make steady gains even when the republicans run things.

Perhaps if we felt the Boehner and McConnell were simply better at this we would like them better. If we believed their assessments of when to cut our losses and when to make a sudden grab, we might shrug it off that they are not core conservatives. I always said that if Ted Kennedy had been from Wyoming he would have been conservative.