DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN: Another "can't lose" moderate... loses

Jeffrey Lord pens another must-read that is certain to be ignored by the Beltway class and, yet, contains within it certain incontrovertible truths.

Number one: another "can't lose" RINO moderate... fails. Do the terms McCain, Dole, Bush 41 and Ford ring a bell?

Number two: where were first principles in this campaign?

One cannot plunge the country into astronomical debt without there being a financial come-to-Jesus reckoning. One cannot tempt aggression with weakness. One cannot tax one's way to prosperity. One cannot build a behemoth federal government and expect the country to prosper. One cannot, as Mark Levin puts it, not understand the "interconnection of liberty, free markets, religion, tradition and authority" -- and not pay a price for that lack of understanding.

Were these conservative principles true in 1980? Yes. They were also true in 1780 and 1880 and they will be true in 2080. They are to the world of politics and government what Newton's law of gravity is to the physical world. And to the extent that they are ignored, one is -- politically speaking -- jumping off the Empire State Building without a parachute.

Has the country changed since 1980? I would hope so. Change in human life is unstoppable. But as Reagan himself -- a staunch advocate of change -- smartly said: "History comes and goes, but principles endure…"

Barack Obama will come and go. The next Apple iGizmo will appear -- and eventually disappear to be a relic. Katy Perry and Lena Dunham will grow old. America will not even be in this moment of 2012 for very much longer. Life will go on. Time will move on. And yes, some absolutely inevitable and foreseeable crisis will confront the new romance with American socialism and send Americans running back to their roots.

Lord insists we need more "New Reagans" -- people of all backgrounds, all races, all religions -- who are well-versed in conservatism.

And where did Marco Rubio, now hailed by the Republican establishment as a 2016 favorite, come from? Not from the RINO establishment. It backed Charlie "Tan-in-a-Can" Crist and fought Rubio tooth and nail. It was the Tea Party and Constitutional Conservative movement that gave birth to Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, etc.

There are flawed candidates, to be sure, among those backed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party. RINOs point to Sharon Angle and Richard Mourdock, for example, forgetting that no one wins 100 percent of their slate. Until the afternoon of election day, when the unions started busing in voters from places unknown, Angle was in fact leading Harry Reid handily.

And one inappropriate and/or misconstrued remark by Mourdock (and a crackpot third-party candidate) helped cook his campaign.

It's not the conservatives who need to go away. It's the RINO establishment that should make themselves scarce. Once again, a mushy centrist -- who supposedly would appeal to wide swaths of the electorate -- lost in a race that should have been a slamdunk.

And in this existential showdown between liberty and tyranny, Mitt Romney could not even attract the same number of voters as... John McCain. Constitutional conservatives, Tea Party conservatives, and fiscal conservatives don't need to retreat. The RINO country club set needs to cede control to the true heart of the party. And if they refuse to cede power, we will defeat them as we have time and time again.