conservative, not republican

This story out of the LA Times struck me, but did not give explain well why so many people are no longer defining themselves as members of the GOP. My take is that the party now has shifted so far to the left that they no longer represent conservative views. They are certainly not pro-life and are increasingly liberal in terms of border security and spending our tax money on socialist programs and pork-barrel political garbage. Unless someone like Fred Thompson becomes the Republican's nominee for President in '08, I will end up voting for the Constitutional Party's candidate.

"Public allegiance to the Republican Party has plunged since the second year of George W. Bush's presidency, as attitudes have edged away from some of the conservative values that fueled GOP political dominance for more than a decade, a major new survey has found.

...other Republicans believe such poll results signal a clear end to the era of GOP domination that began with President Reagan's election, continued when the party took control of Capitol Hill in 1994, and helped elect Bush twice to the White House."There are cycles in history where one party or one movement ascends for a while and then it sews the seeds of its own self-destruction," said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative analyst and author of a 2006 book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted American and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.""It's clear we have come to an end of a Republican conservative era," he said.

Republicans seem to be paying a price for a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the state of the country during the Bush years. Three out of 10 people said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the country--a 25-point drop in the last seven years."