I'd still have voted for Obama, but I'd've been incensed at the modern Republican party for so utterly abandoning conservatism for the weird ideological hodgepodge that they've evolved to over the last 20 years or so. The modern Republican party seems to have abandoned a number of core principles:
1) Limited government power
The Bush administration in particular has vastly expanded government power. Warrentless wiretapping? Seriously? In THIS country? There's nothing conservative about that.
2) Maximizing individual freedom of choice
A prime example: the abortion issue. If abortion is legal, then everyone can make a choice consistent with their principles- if you think abortion is wrong, you don't have one. If you think it's acceptable, you do. Individual freedom is maximized. Sure, some compromise like no 3rd-trimester abortions is probably sensible, to account for the fact that by that time the developing fetus is capable of surviving outside the mother, is clearly human, etc. But promoting an outright ban is not consistent with conservative princples.
Or, you can do what the Republican party has done, and make Sarah Palin, whose philosophy seems to be "if your father rapes you, I'm going to make you pay for the rape kit and keep the baby", the face of the party.
3) Promoting "American exceptionalism"
I like the idea of American exceptionalism. But it's a really hard sell when you're torturing prisoners (Abu Ghraib), holding people without charges (Guantanamo), and secretly shipping people to other countries for torture sessions that violate the Geneva conventions and our own internal laws. That's not conservatism, that's despotism.
4) Fiscal responsibility
President Bush and his congressional allies have done a marvelous job of turning hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus into hundreds of millions of dollars of deficit. There's nothing conservative about that. Instead, the party has become a party of cutting taxes at all times, whether it makes any conceivable sense to do so or not. Conservatism would be about doing the thing that makes fiscal sense.
5) Government efficiency
Conservatism should be about making sure government agencies are as lean as they can be, while accomplishing whatever tasks are needed. Instead, for the last 8 years we've had nothing but incompetence from the people appointed to run government agencies. Showcase example: FEMA during Katrina. That kind of performance is not conservatism. And Katrina brings me to:
6) Promoting a meritocracy
Conservatism should be about individuals working hard and getting rewarded as a result. Instead, since the Reagan Revolution we've seen a pretty steady decline in social mobility, which has led to tremendous empowerment of the very well-off, while holding down everyone else. There's nothing conservative about that. And don't even get me started on President Bush and the nincompoops he appointed to key positions within the federal government. Heckuva job there, Mr. President.
On all of these issues, the Republican party has completely ceded the ground to the Democrats. And lo and behold, the Republicans got their asses kicked. They were only able to pull off the 2000 election because people were so frustrated with President Clinton's shenanigans, and they were only able to pull off 2004 because enough people were still residually scared from the 9/11 experience. And that's without factoring in any election-day cheating. It's been a long time since they've won on ideas; fear/anger is pretty much all they've got. And it's not working anymore. People are less afraid of terrorism, less afraid of gay people (and getting less afraid all the time- in another generation no one will care anymore), and generally less likely to respond to a message like Senator McCain's, which basically boiled down to: "Elect me because you're afraid of life under the other guy."
So at this point, any true conservative has to vote Dem or abstain completely. But I'd be hopping mad, and I'd want to spend the next 4 years re-writing the Republican platform. And if the Grover Norquists and James Dobsons of the world didn't like the new platform, I'd tell them to kiss my ass and stay home on election day. Because the party that pushes the ideals above will be extremely attractive to the middle 60% of voters.
Election '08 proved it.
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