I was recently whining to a friend that for the first time I can ever recall (going back to when i was 14 or 15) I am completely bored and unmotivated during an election season. I have been the guy who lambastes people for not taking part in the political process. And then 2008 came along.

The least conservative Republican won our primary. The bloodletting continues in the Democrat party. And here I sit, disgusted with them all and with very little to say about the whole mess. However, I would like to echo everything Patrick J. Casey over at the American Thinker blog said in his recent post, “If The GOP Wants To Govern Like Democrats, Why Have a Separate Party?”

Casey points out:

What we’re watching is the culmination of the decade-plus deterioration of the conservative Republican brand. Put simply, no one, including base conservatives, trusts the Republicans to govern effectively while following anything even faintly resembling a conservative platform.

Ain’t that the truth. Some of us (and many more than me) have worked and contributed and campaigned to give power to conservatives. And when they had the power, did they enact the changes we need? No. They used that power to retain power. Casey goes on to say:

…the only time that the Republicans really took the country by storm was in 1994, when they all ran on a set of firm, well established conservative values and issues. When the GOP strayed from that, falling back on the Democratic Party tradition of retaining power through excessive pork barrel spending and questionable ethical practices, they first lost seats – then lost their majorities. To regain what they have thrown away they must return to those conservative principles. If successful, they then must reject the compromising allure of power and promise to govern in the future as conservatives, not as the Democratic Party Lite.

And there he hits the nail on the head. Thats’ the cause of my boredom and malaise this election year. I’m not going to work and contribute and campaign for Democrat Lite. I might reluctantly have to vote for someone I am largely dissatisfied with in order to save the country from someone I am wholly dissatisfied with, but that does not make me well up with pride or motivate me to storm the country for my reluctant choice.

Casey goes on to cite the malfeasance of Republicans:

By their actions, or inactions, the Republican leadership has permitted the Democrats and the media to define down the GOP, recreating the word “conservative” as a pejorative. Think family values and the image is of Mark Foley and Vito Fossella. Think wasteful pork barrel and earmark spending – and the image is of Ted Stevens. Think corruption and the public thinks Randy Cunningham. Think “against tax cuts” and the image is of … John McCain.

All of these issues define the Republicans as a party that promises to both reform government and to address the major problems that the country faces today, but delivers no more and acts no better than Democrats. As such, are we supposed to be surprised that the voters would rather have the real Democrats, rather than the fake?

Basically, he concludes, McCain might win, but conservatives all lose (which, come to think of it, is petty much how McCain has always treated the grassroots conservatives):

McCain will be all over the map this fall – conservative on some important issues like the war and judges, but liberal on other issues such as the global warming, immigration, and perhaps even taxes. The past few years has shown that such vacillation – such an inability to enunciate a clear set of conservative governing principles across the policy spectrum – might work for an individual GOP candidate here and there, but represents disaster for the overall political party.

His post is a worth a read.