ENOUGH ALREADY!

Let's end this Big Tent versus pure tent discussion ASAP, okay? As James Dean put it, "You're tearing me apart! You say one thing and you say the other..."

Now by me, I mean Republican supporters. And by you, I mean the talking heads on the right side of the political spectrum. Bear in mind that I'm lumping good in with bad here, but the likes of Colin Powell, Meghan McCain and Tom Ridge on one hand and Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove on the other are collectively doing more harm than good. Just shut up about each other!

None of you offer value by arguing like school kids. Besides, your real beef is not with each other. Sure it makes great headlines, it's good for your website, or your book tour. But it doesn't help the GOP. Sure you all have a different view of how to 'fix' the party and what's best for the nation. But these are not times for dirty laundry to be aired in public. The President has this whole common ground routine he likes to trot out. Well here there's some opportunity to apply his hyper-happy logic in a workable situation.

Moderates

Colin Powell and Rush Limbaugh have some very fundamental differences. But both claim to be Republicans. While it may be a bit harder for Powell to exemplify a Republican, he still apparently wants to be one. So fine. Work for a John McCain style candidate for 2012. But you'd better end up voting for him instead of the other guy if he wins. In fact, you'd better vote for the Republican nominee no matter who it ends up being.

Conservatives and moderates need a united front against liberalism in the media, in the schools and in the government. If not we're doomed. I've argued this in the past in An Open Letter to GOP The Leadership. But it has to be broadened. It should have been called An Open Letter to Conservatives and Republicans.

If you don't know who your friends are, you're screwed. The media is all over this and everyone ends up looking like selfish blowhards or worse - fools. Even when the talking points about each other are mild, they're made out by the left-wing media as nuclear standoffs. There's no good way out of that scenario. Falling for these distractions is beyond counter-productive, it's fully destructive. If I were James Carville I'd be sipping whatever concoction he drinks today, and laughing myself silly over the incompetence being displayed by the right.

Soul searching after a loss is normal. But the time for doing that has past. The real enemy is putting America to sleep with a lethal injection of socialism. You're getting that injection and filling your time fighting each other. Tell me how that makes sense.

Conservatives

If you can't do any more than this, just at least turn the other cheek on this petty stuff and fight the real enemy. We all should know who that is, even if, ahem, some of 'us' voted for that change.

Rush has incredible talent. He needs to have his sites trained on those who deserve his shots.

As annoyed as conservatives might be by the comments made by Tom Ridge (and believe me - it was quite aggravating), he's a better option than any Democratic opponent he might face. Oppose him in the primaries, but if he wins, he's still your best choice in the general election.

Yeah, it's not ideal to have to share the party with moderates, but we need to get them to buy into true conservatism. If we can't win them over, what chance do we have with independent voters and conservative Democrats? And you can't win over someone in the middle while attacking them. There are ways to win over liberals. But it seems like we have to win over some of our own first. And we don't have a lot of time. So stop bickering and move on to more productive efforts.