Conservatives are incessantly browbeaten into "softening their message", "moderating their stances", or "moving to the middle" (i.e., to the left) in order to win over the so-called moderates and independents of the electorate. President Ronald Reagan, the greatest conservative of our generation, didn't believe in soft-pedaling conservative principles and values.

Reagan firmly ended his 1975 CPAC speech, after espousing basic Republican  beliefs, ended with the following closing:

Stated another way, "RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), either support these core principles or get out!"  Reagan said to RINOs, even though the term wasn't prevalent at the time, "I think moderation should be taken in moderation." Reagan didn't believe that so-called "moderates" were the future of the party and he was and still is right.  Reagan gave the following analogy:

"When you're on the operating table, you hope the doctor has more than just moderate skills.  Let's put what we and our party believe on our banner and not water it down."

No "sticking his finger in the wind" or "moving to the center" or "going after the centrist vote" for Reagan, who won two elections in two landslides.  Yet, for several decades, true conservatives have had to "hold their nose" and gag on Republican Party establishment sponsored Presidential nominees like the moderate-to-liberal, Wendell Wilkie, Tom Dewey (lost twice to FDR in an economy far worse than the present one), Richard Nixon (no, he was not a conservative...see wage and price controls, EPA, OSHA, etc.), Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, and recently, John McCain.  All of these GOP brass supported nominees lost, of course, failing to clearly distinguish themselves with their uninspiring, bland, and economically damaging main message that they could manage big government better than their Democrat counterparts.

Reagan, who was never fully supported by the party establishment, broke the mold of the squishy, wishy-washy, "go-along-to-get-along", Democrat-lite, Rockefeller Republicans.  Reagan, when asked about a potential third-party bid in 1975 (conservatives were disillusioned with the GOP then too, much like the Tea Party is today), responded that it wasn't a third party that was needed, but a "revitalized second party raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all the issues troubling the people." Reagan knew that principled conservatism, clearly communicated, could win on its own two feet and that it was better to have a party that stood for one thing to all people, rather than trying, like the Democrats do, to be all things to all people.

Fast forward to the 2012 presidential election and, like a bad dream, we're likely dealt two possibilities, Barack Obama and establishment-backed GOP favorite ("more electable", "the safer bet", blah, blah, blah), Mitt Romney, the only two living human beings that have managed to bring socialized medicine to America.  As Yogi Berra would say, "It's like deja-vu all over again." Can anyone say, "pale pastels" or Wendell Wilkie?

Defining insanity, conservatives are force-fed the "lesser of two evils", less-bad candidates who ultimately lose to even more liberal liberals, to the detriment of the country.  Yet, despite of this near-perfect losing record, the GOP establishment continues to hoist these non-conservative losers upon us.

"Republicans" who can't agree in constitutionally-limited government, who can't agree that government runs nothing well, who don't believe in economic freedom and free markets, and who can't agree with the incontrovertible historic truth that growth in government equates to a corresponding loss of individual freedom, should, as Ronald Reagan recommended "go their way".  Both the Republican Party and the country would profit from their absence.