We are thinking heavily here about how to present a systematic approach to understanding what we call “Conservatism”. Just this week, a fellow Iowa blogger Albert Bregar penned his thoughts at Red County Polk County and Iowa Defense Alliance.
Albert provides an excellent start with a view to how many of us think about defining the way conservatives see the world today (okay, such a view would include “Ronald Reagan came back for more”). We will certainly start looking around blogdom and start collecting a list of such statements as “Smaller Government” and build them into a resource.

But in stating the conservative view of today’s world, we do limit ourselves to more of a statement of “how does conservative thinking apply to today’s issues”. What I hope we may eventually find is more of a basis for conservative thought. It’s great to say [...]

You’re going to hear quite a bit from the left over ‘the death of conservatism’ over the next few weeks. But they’ve got it wrong. I say, what we’ve got is the death of compromised conservatism as espoused by George W Bush, his father, GHW Bush, and by more recently, John McCain.

This morning, we see a post from Helen Valois at Renew America, who calls this ‘conservative conservatism’. I can quibble with the name she chooses, but not her meaning…

What is conservative conservatism? It is a commitment to playing a good defense (or rather — except for the one, brief, shining moment of Governor Palin’s acceptance speech — a pretty flawed defense) when your opponents have gone decisively on the offensive. It is that which John McCain quintessentially represents — the recalcitrant[...]

It seems strange to be writing in this space again after what seems like an lengthy hiatus.  Two weeks of vacation, followed by a week of catching up.  And, as a result, admittedly out of touch.
Barack’s puzzled?  Who knew?  He seems so confident, so, shall I dare say it, full of hope!  So vacuous!
McCain’s moderate [...]