Elephant In Exile

It's not just the moderates:

Some of us have an affinity for the GOP because of what they used to stand for, not who's heading the ticket. But as we all know, principal takes a back seat to power. Elephant's been increasingly alienated by Bush's plunge into what can best be described as "Theorcratic Socialism". I thought it was just libertarian minded moderates like my self. But, it looks like the standard bearer for the conservative right, Bob Barr is on board as well. Money quote:

But the concerns for many conservative voters -- concerns that may cause them not to vote for Mr. Bush on Nov. 2 -- fall generally into three categories: fiscal, physical (as in the physical security of our nation) and freedom (as in protecting our civil liberties).

When Bush became president Jan. 20, 2001, he inherited an enviable fiscal situation. Congress, then controlled by his own party, had -- through discipline and tough votes -- whittled down decades of deficit spending under presidents of both parties, so that annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars had been transformed to a series of real and projected surpluses. The heavy lifting had been done. All Bush had to do was resist the urge to spend, and he had to exert some pressure on Congress to resist its natural impulses to do the same. Had he done that, he might have gone down in history as the most fiscally conservative president in modern times.
Instead, what we got were record levels of new spending, including nearly double-digit increases in nondefense discretionary spending. We now have deficits exceeding those that the first Republican-controlled Congress in 40 years faced when it convened in January 1995.

The oft-repeated mantra that "the terrorists made us spend more" rings hollow, especially to those who actually understand that increases in nondefense discretionary spending are not the inevitable result of fighting terrorists. It also irritates many conservatives, whether or not they support the war in Iraq, that so much of defense spending is being poured into the black hole of Iraq's internal security, while the security of our own borders goes wanting.

So, amongst all the teeming crowds that weep at the sight of President Bush, there's an unknown number of us who are sitting on our hands, dissappointed and abandoned in our ideology. This race ain't over yet, not by a long shot.

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/news_flankingaction.html