However, it's a totally different ball game when we're talking about mere allies. Why give money and spend precious time volunteering on the campaigns of people who are going to turn right around and cut you off at the knees on spending and illegal immigration once they get to DC?

In other words, the attitude towards the GOP has become, "He may be a son-of-a-b*tch, but he's my son-of-a-b*tch." That's what today's Republican Party is to most conservatives: our sons-of-b*tches.

........Which brings us, as conversations of this sort usually do, back to Reagan. Why did conservatives love Reagan? Certainly, he was a great President, but he departed from the conservative orthodoxy on more than a few occasions. Reagan signed an abortion bill when he was governor of California, the debt exploded under his watch, he raised taxes, he signed an amnesty bill, and Iran-Contra was certainly a big scandal. Yet conservatives, who were just as serious about their principles back then as they are today, supported him ferociously when he was in office and revere the man's memory.

Why?

Simple: because there was never the slightest doubt in the minds of conservatives that Ronald Reagan shared their values and was doing everything within his power to use conservative principles to make our country a better place. So, when Reagan did something that conservatives disagreed with, they figured he was just doing what he had to do for the sake of politics and didn't hold it against him.

Republicans today don't have that luxury because the assumptions that conservatives made about Reagan have been reversed. If a Republican does something that pleases conservatives, they often assume that it is being done for political purposes while deviations from the conservative norm represent what Republicans really want to do.

Until the Republicans can repair that breach of faith and convince conservatives that the GOP has the same goals as conservatives do on issues like spending, the size of government, and illegal immigration, the Party may win some battles, but it's going to slowly, but surely lose the war for the future of our country.