As Dennis Quaid said in "The Rookie"...It's never just one thing.

But I think numbers 1,2,3, and 7 could be called the Four Horsemen of the (Republican) Apocalypse.

i said other:

Cobwebs on the "Bully-Pulpit"

Allowing the Libs to attack constantly without counter attack.

Face it they allowed the Dems to totally frame the public perception of events.  Where has W been with the bully pulpit?

   “i am the quixotic botg and i approved this message”   

While overspending was decidedly anti-conservative, there were a couple of other problems.

One was Bush's seeming unwillingness to keep Americans informed of his policies. Until the past year or so, Bush held rather few press conferences.

The other is Bush's and the Republican party's unwillingness to respond to attacks by the Democrats and the media during the first six years of his administration. His responses to their attacks came a bit too late.

Because I wanted to say

ALL OF THE ABOVE

I did not vote because this item was not listed.

The last true leader of the Republican Party was President Ronald Reagan. There has been no one to step into his shoes since he finished his second term in the White House.

No one since Reagan has exhibited anything close to his combination of a clear vision of a set of guiding principles along with the communication skills and desire to constantly inform people of those principles. Unlike his successors, Reagan tirelessly sought to convince more people of the correctness of his guiding principles rather than trying to appeal to more people like it seems most want to do today.

All of the above plus more, and not necessarily in that order.

But if you want to condense it into two words? How about: Lincoln Chafee

It's not that the guy wasn't a conservative, he wasn't even a Republican and yet get this.

The Weekly Standard
LINCOLN CHAFEE, easily the Senate's most liberal Republican, didn't vote for George W. Bush in 2004.

Nevertheless, in his bid for reelection this year (2006), Chafee has so far enjoyed the robust support of the White House, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Rhode Island state GOP, and leading Senate conservatives--despite the presence on the primary ballot of a right-of-center alternative, Cranston mayor Stephen Laffey.

And now... he's LEFT the Republican party that Bush ensured he was the nominee for in 2006. Gosh I'm shocked, shocked I tells ya!

Doesn't that SAY IT ALL?

Vote 4 change. Vote 4 anything. See Jack & Mr Shy's first campaign ad for the ONLY viable 3rd party candidate.

This is far and away the BIGGEST reason, and this is what my liberal friends HAMMER me on most of the time.

Not only that my lib friends say they are voting democrat, to reduce spending!!

Screw the MSM . The reason the swiftboating worked is because it was the TRUTH. All the crap the msm tossed no way the truth was ever going to be covered up.

The POPE says, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

Liberals/need/help/IranianUranium/<sleep>

IMHO, "All of the above", or some selective groupings should be added as additional options.

"If todays's Democrats were running Congress in the 1940's, we'd already be a bi-lingual nation----------German and Japanese!"

I'm actually in the majority.

Yep, folks, it's spending. You can blame us for a lot, but the fact that the Democrats can righteously diss Republicans on that sore subject by now is NOT the party's hated-but-tiny libertarian faction's fault...
JMR

The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.

Well, at least a "most of the above" answer.

Conservatives elected GWB and Congress. And what we got for it was largely a slap in the face. Spending on liberal social programs increased, there were repeated demoralizing attempts to pass Amnesty, escalating pork at the Congressional trough, and a parade of personal misbehavior that turned the stomachs of the party base.

A lot of conservatives stayed home in 2006, but the party itself has not done anything much about it. Read the comments to the warmed over milquetoast "agenda" of the RNCC at their site and you will see why the party is in trouble:

http://blog.nrcc.org...

So many conservatives are fed up that donations are down, McCain is struggling in the polls against a far left ideologue, and congressional seats are dropping where they should not be dropping.

Personally I'll vote for McCain, but with no enthusiasm. I haven't given a dime to the party that got a lot more than that from me in the past.

IMO the cavalry may be on the horizon. Jindl and Palin are two young conservative governors who will have a full term's worth of executive experience in 2012. If they do well in that guantlet they would make a heck of a Republican ticket after four years of setbacks under Obama or McCain. Until then, the best conservatives can hope for is rearguard action and sorting out options.

It's interesting that overspending is in the lead when you consider the nation(many Republicans included) is about to turn the keys over to a party guaranteed to double what Republicans have spent the past 8 years.

I chose other, and was going to say that allowing the Democrats to control the conversation basically unopposed on nearly every issue is the main problem, but now I think that's just a symptom of the real problem, which is Republicans are just too interested in behaving like Democrats.

Edit:
One thing not on the list that maybe should be is Hurricane Katrina. The administration allowed the media to paint that catastrophe as a Bush-only-created catastrophe, and things haven't been the same since.

I receive Newsmax emails, and today's had this in it: Conservative activist Richard Viguerie, without listing all the reasons for their failure says that all the Republican leaders must resign.

The Republican Party must replace its leadership or conservatives will continue to withhold support and the GOP will face “disaster” in November, leading conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie declared.

“Republican Party leaders must resign,” said Viguerie, publisher of ConservativeHQ.com and the pioneer of political direct mail.

“Leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed — or outright betrayed — the conservative voters who put them in their positions.

“The result is that the Republican Party’s brand has become a negative to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps even worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover.”

Viguerie made these points:

* The number of new Republican voters is flat while Democratic voter registration is soaring.
* Contributions to Republican candidates and committees are way off, while donations to Democrats are "setting records."
* In this year’s primaries, votes for GOP candidates at all levels are running far behind the Democrats.
* In recent special elections, Republicans lost House seats in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi that had long been in GOP hands — all in districts carried overwhelmingly by President Bush. A single election can be a fluke, but when Republicans lose three seemingly safe seats in a row, “disaster is looming.”

“The hard work of the last 50 years by millions of conservative campaign workers, donors, candidates, writers, intellectuals, and activists has been trashed,” he said.

“The conservative movement has been set back 10 to 20 years — possibly even permanently — by politicians consumed by power.”

He named a number of prominent Republicans, including President Bush, Karl Rove, party chairman Mike Duncan, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and House Minority Whip Roy Blunt.

“Some deserve more of the blame than others, but they are all part of an establishment that has brought the Republican Party down,” added Viguerie, whose latest book is “Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause.”

“For things to change, for conservatives to be justified in once again giving our contributions, our volunteer efforts, our energy, and votes to the GOP, the party must clean house. The party leadership should resign immediately.

“Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced with principled conservatives in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan.”

Viguerie has this message for the current GOP leadership: “For the future of the Republican Party, for America, and the cause of freedom: Go!”

Sounds like a plan to me!!

As the baby boomer bubble shifts toward retirement age, the votes for more and more government largess will grow more and more plentiful.  Its called self-interest.

Seeing this inevitability, Bush and the republicans tried triangulating into democratic turf by spending like drunken sailors on all manner of social programs.  But the Bush-hating, leftist MSM refused to play ball and begrudged giving Bush et al, even an iota of credit for their across-the-board generosity.  And keep in mind that one person's pork-barrel spending is another person's park, research grant, museum or bridge (and they don't all go to "no-where"!).

Instead, the MSM nitpicked and disparaged the way Bush chose to be generous (whining about paper work for prescription drugs) or simply ignored Bush's generosity.

Also, remember we were at war (post 9/11), and facing recession, so almost everyone at the time agreed that running up the credit card was justified.

For the MSM and the Dems to now accuse Bush of over-spending, while at the same time arguing for limitless health care coverage, open borders and free college education - is the height of hypocrisy.

(Note to all the anti-Iraq war conservatives: The time to stop the war was before it started.  Abandoning the Iraqi people after a huge majority of Americans and our politicians agreed to turn their country upside-down - would be a huge moral and geopolitical mistake.  Its OUR mess.  We are responsible.  Quit the whining!  Isolationism is no answer in a world facing its biggest challenge since Nazi Germany.)