1 of 2

Write now Article Tools

This depends on what you mean by ''conservative.'' Neo-conservatives control the present Republican Party. President Bush is a neo-conservative. They are big government conservatives who voted to expand Medicare. It now includes prescription drug coverage. Although some senior citizens don't have supplemental health insurance coverage, I don't remember a great clamoring to expand Medicare to include the aforementioned prescription drug coverage.

Neo-conservatives such as Bush expanded the federal role in education by creating the No Child Left Behind disaster. What ever happened to unfunded mandates? Although the goals of NCLB are laudable, they can't succeed if some money doesn't come from Washington, D.C. There are too many mandates to begin with and the supporters of this fiscal monstrosity believe in a ''one size fits all'' approach. How is a school district in rural Wyoming the same as one in New York City?

Neo-consevatives who control the Republican Party were the ideologues who designed and desired the Iraq war. They wanted to estabish a thriving democracy to the Middle East. Too bad they ignored the fact that a democracy hasn't existed in the Middle East. Where were the weapons of mass destruction? Was there a direct link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda? They went to war for the simple case of overthrowing another nation's leader. Isn't it up to the people of Iraq to decide such things for themselves?

On the other hand, real, populist paleo-conservatives used to control the Republican Party. Unfortunately, they don't anymore. If this were the case, Ron Paul would have emerged victorious in the Republican nominating process rather than John McCain.

Paleo-conservatives or populist conservatives want illegal immigration eliminated and legal immigration significantly reduced to 100,000 people or less per year. Only highly skilled people should be allowed to emigrate to this country.

Paleo-conservatives oppose federal involvement in education and believe that decisions should be made at the local level. Parents should have the ability to decide for themselves where to send their children to school. They also believe in medical savings accounts and oppose expanding Medicare in any way.

Paleo-conservatives only believe that the United States should enter wars when they are attacked by another country. They don't believe in nation-building or expanding democracy to the rest of the globe, either.

Although John McCain believes in eliminating pork-barrel spending, he doesn't share many of the paleo-conservatives' beliefs and adheres to the policies of the neo-conservatives.

Another major distinction between paleo and neo-conservatives are the way that they view the future of the Republican Party: paleo-conservatives want to focus on the base of the party which are middle-class, white Christian conservatives while the neo-conservatives want to have an ''open tent philosophy'' which means bringing more diversity to the Party. They want more Hispanics in the Party. This is the main reason why McCain supports a comprehensive solution to immigration. He supports a guest worker program for illegal immigrants and wants a path to make them permanent citizens of the United States.

The amount of votes that John McCain gets will determine how these two groups of conservatives vote.

Learn more about this author, David Giza.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about US elections 2008: What conservatives want?
We want to hear your view. Write now!