This fine post by Polipundit’s Oak Leaf from a few days back is one of the best I’ve read in recent months – about what conservatives are to do when their own party’s elected officials in Washington abandon the principles and concerns that led to their very election in the first place. What I especially like about the post is the links to works by D.J. Drummond of Wizbang! Politics (someone I’ve always enjoyed reading, even if not always agreeing with his views) and Graig Shirley of Politico.com. It lays out clearly and concisely the various paths available to conservatives and Republicans a year before the critical 2008 Presidential elections, asking the question, “In order to save its ideology, should the conservative movement declare its independence from the Bush administration and the GOP?”, to which, like Oak Leaf, I have to respond in the affirmative.

I couldn’t agree more with the way Oak Leaf sums up his post:

To that question, I answer with an emphatic yes and in the comments over at Wizbang to DJ Drummonds essay, our own “budahmon” explains that many conservatives are not buying the fear factor anymore:

“You can’t scare us with Hillary…when the Republican elitist have given us the these types of politicians and then cram immigration down our throats.”

I bastardized my vote in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 for “political expediency.” Never again.

Indeed. How can you worry about what the Democrats are going to do when they have all the power when our own Republican elected officials have already ceded that power out of their own arrogance, incompetence, and stupidity?