Things have, of course, changed in the last few weeks. Perry has performed badly in debates, going so far as to call principled conservatives “heartless” for not supporting subsidized college tuition for illegal aliens.

Bachmann has also hurt herself by being to aggressive in her attacks against Perry while mostly ignoring Romney, the guy least trusted by conservatives. Her efforts have the effect of actually helping Romney!

Then there’s Herman Cain.

Cain has performed well in all thebdebates. He’s been knowledgable and given solid, substantive answers. More importantly, in my view, he’s remained above the fray by contrasting himself with other candidates while not attacking them.

The impact of all this has been Cain’s rise in the polls while both Perry and Bachmann have fallen. On Saturday Cain stunned everyone by winning the Florida straw poll! Now a Zogby poll has Cain leading with Perry second and Romney third.

Speculation of a Cain/Rubio ticket is now rampant on Twitter! Can you imagine how the dems would handle that? Such a ticket would, at the very least, nake it very difficult for dems to play the race card.

Cain now claims he can win a third or more of the black vote. If he’s right just think of impact that would have in the general election!

For many conservatives and tea party activists this race is equal parts conservative idealism and electability. At this juncture Cain seems to have both. The momentum has shifted and Herman Cain is in a great position to surge ahead.

If you can’t tell, I’ve now switched my suppot from Perry to Cain, a true American conservative.

In fact the housing bubble and subsequent collapse was the result of artifically low interest rates by the fed and government backed loan programs that ignored credit worthiness, along with “anti-discrimination”regulations that forced lenders to make bad loans, all of which removed normal market forces from the supply and demand equation. The predictable results were an artificial increase in demand leading to rising prices along with growing numbers of bad loans. Lending institutions were then forced to find ways to mitigate the risks forced upon them by the government which lead to the toxic mortgage backed securities. From start to finish this was ALL the fault of government regulation, NOT free market capitalism. This would not have happened in a real free market.

So my question is this: Why don’t Republicans make this argument and defend capitalism and market economics?

Now I’m not some neophyte who’s counting on anything being possible. I very much recognize that there is virtually no chance at all for Mike Huckabee to secure the nomination. For all intents and purposes John McCain has it sown up. I just think that the rhetoric surrounding “mathematically impossibility” should be accurate.

All this talk is predicated by the notion that Huckabee should drop out “for the good of the party” but who defines that good? The assumption is that it is good for the party to allow McCain to stop worry about about the primaries and concentrate on winning in November. There may be some merit to that line of thinking but I don’t think it should prevail. As Huckabee has rightly pointed out, there are still a lot of Republican voters who haven’t had the opportunity to have their voices heard.

The fact is, Huckabee isn’t staying in the race to win at this point, although it is theoretically possible for him to do so. In the unlikely scenario where Huckabee actually does win every delegate going forward, we’d have a brokered convention and Huckabee would be in a pretty good position. But I think Huckabee is angling for influence at the convention. That certainly isn’t unprecedented.

Over the last decade we’ve seen the Republican Party slowing move more and more to the left. That’s precisely why the GOP suffered such losses in ’06. We need people like Huckabee working to exert influence at the convention to move the party back to the right. Left to its own devices, the party is likely to continue its leftward tilt and that isn’t good for the party or the country.

I’m still pulling for Mike Huckabee, not because I think he can win, but because I want him on the podium at the convention. I want his perspective represented. I want a strong voice for the sanctity of life, for traditional marriage and for the FairTax. While Huckabee can’t win, he can have influence and we really need such influence right now.

Boehner has warned the GOP that it has to cut spending to take back Congress. Yet, when given the perfect opportunity to do just that, Boehner caved to Democrat and GOP big spenders. From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Flake is the scourge of earmarks and the last person Members of either party want on Congress’s main spending committee. He would have been a whistle-blower for taxpayers, in particular against the powerful Democrats who get the most earmarks now that they are in the majority, such as Pennsylvania’s Jack Murtha. But Republican spenders couldn’t tolerate someone who would call out their pork too.

Conservatives have recognized all along that the primary reason for GOP losses in 2006 was governing like Democrats, outspending that party by huge margins. Most the GOP leadership was in denial then, believing the Iraq was the reason for their losses. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, GOP leadership seems to still not get it.

Congressional approval ratings under Democrat control are at all time lows. At the current rate it seems likely they will be in the single digits well before election day. One might think the time is ripe for the GOP to retake Congress. And that would be sound reasoning except that the Republican Party remains in denial.

If the GOP had a strong conservative candidate for President we might be able to count on some measure of “coat tail” effect. Alas, there is no conservative candidate to inspire the Republican base. So, when the perfect conditions exist for a Republican resurgence, instead we’re likely to see the Democrats increase their lead in both houses of Congress while taking the White House too.

It seems the news for conservatives just gets worse and worse every day. That’s why I’m so big on finding, recruiting and supporting true conservatives. I’ve said many times that when true conservatives run on solid conservative platforms, they invariably win. Unfortunately, we weren’t really given such a choice in the Republican presidential primaries. But in my own state of South Carolina, the primaries for congressional and Senate seats are still months away. There is still time to do something about this mess.

I’ve been working to replace South Carolina’s RINO senior Senator, Lindsey Graham. My Congressman, Henry Brown, isn’t much better. He routinely goes along with House GOP leadership rather than stand on conservative principles. He needs to be replaced with a principled conservative. It will be an uphill battle to replace entrenched incumbents. GOP committees in both houses of Congress will work hard to keep their people in place. But we have to remember that “we, the people” have the power. It is our votes that matter and we can turn these guys out and replace them with real conservative leaders. The question is, will we?

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