I don't think conservatism is dead at all. In fact, stay with me as this won't sound right, I believe that conservatism is why Obama got elected.

By the time the 2008 election rolled around, McCain was no longer a conservative. Since McCain was espousing a "more of the same" mantra during the campaign, he'd clearly abandoned his formerly conservative priciples. This is NOT the same man I voted for in the 2000 New Hampshire primary!

Without going into a long, drawn-out discussion about why I have that opinion, I'll simply present a graphic example. It was inconceivable that McCain, who was so outspoken against torture, was suddenly waffling on the subject. Him, of ALL people, a former POW.

Nobody hat yet conviced me why, for example, waterboarding was "torture" and a war crime for which Japanese were prosecuted after WWII, yet it was ok for US to do it 60 years late. I'm still waiting for a convincing explanation. (Especially in light of study after study showing that torture doesn't work - it only makes the victims say what you want them to say)

So here you have no real conservative candidate.

HOWEVER - you have a candidate that the REST of the world seems to like so at least we can score some foreign policy points to help our god-awful reputation overseas. You also have a candidate who is going to try and step in and do something about the recession - whereas McCain was talking "more tax cuts" that were, rightly or wrongly, perceived as 'for the rich'.

So you get what my daughter called the "Obamacans". The same phenomenon that produced the "Reagan Democrats" 28 years earlier.

I tell you - if there was a VIABLE 3rd party candidate who espoused keeping the government out of your wallet (like the Republicans) *and* out of your bedroom (like the Democrats), I think that person would win in a landslide.