[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
What is beyond doubt is that many of the newly elected Democrats are conservative Democrats, and trying to deny that dynamic because you seem to think it’s impossible that conservatism is accepted at all in the United States because Bush = evil is just ridiculous.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but being a conservative Democrat does not make one a conservative any more than being a liberal Republican makes one a liberal.
[QUOTE=Anduril]
He was impeached because of political reasons.
[/QUOTE]
I noted above that impeachment is largely a political move. I think we agree. Although in Clinton’s case there was an underlying crime. If you recall he was an actual defendant in a case. As others have pointed out, just because he managed to avoid a conviction doesn’t mean he didn’t commit the crime.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
What is beyond doubt is that many of the newly elected Democrats are conservative Democrats
[/QUOTE]
Only if you’re a member of one of those primitive tribes that runs out of numbers after 2 or 3, and everything after that is “many.”
Seriously, who are the newly-elected conservative Democrats, and how conservative are they, really? We’ve got 27 (and counting) new Dem House members, and 6 new Dem Senators, that replaced GOP Congresscritters. Let’s have some names of these “many” conservative Dems, and then we can find out where they stand on the issues.
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Although in Clinton’s case there was an underlying crime.
[/quote]
Again I ask: what was the underlying crime? Please cite the criminal statute you believe he violated.
A civil case. In other words, he got sued.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
(snip)Furthermore, it’s also questionable how a trial would play for Bush in this particular instance because he certainly did not do the wiretapping personally. It’d be an unprecedented legal situation.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about unprecedented. We could ask Charles Manson if he thinks it’s possible to be convicted if you didn’t act personally.
So, are there any viable plans afoot by which the Goldwater faction might reclaim their party?
[QUOTE=spoke-]
Again I ask: what was the underlying crime? Please cite the criminal statute you believe he violated.
[/QUOTE]
Let me ask you: what is the purpose of asking this question over and over again? Wouldn’t one normally have to be a lawyer in order to know specifically which statute/law he violated and was then allowed to bargain his way out of due to the fact that he was the president? Is it your position that unless someone can quote chapter and verse of the law he violated, he is therefore innocent? If I speak of a hit and run driver killing someone, am I not to mention it unless I can cite the specific statute the driver violated?
It’s silly to keep harping on this statute issue. If you truly want to know, I’m certain that a mere modicum of online searching would reveal it; if you merely want to point to the fact that no one has posted one and use that to claim that Clinton violated no law, then I wish you luck in making it stick as virtually everyone in the whole world knows what a lying, cheating, duplicitous, perjuring scumbag he really is. The fact that so many people still revere him doesn’t absolve him of these traits, it merely means that he is their lying, cheating, duplicitous, perjuring scumbag, and so they choose to overlook these qualities and dismiss them as unimportant–even though they know perfectly well that they would despise, revile and condemn anyone who was married to a family member, friend or loved one and behaved in the same way.
Clinton is an inveterate liar and probably has been his entire life. I listened to Rush Limbaugh occasionally in the early nineties and during the campaign against Bush, Sr., Limbaugh busted Clinton’s chops almost daily over one lie or another. (I also recall Limbaugh making fun of some college professor at the time who said of Clinton, in effect: “Of course he can’t tell the truth–he’s running for president!”) 
I’m always amazed at the number of people here who are so certain that the only time Clinton lies is over personal matters. People don’t lie as smoothly and often as he does unless they’ve had lots of practice at it. Do you recall his casual instructions (which, fortunately, are on tape) to Gennifer Flowers, the woman with whom he cheated on his wife and numerous mistresses with for over ten years? There was no hemming and hawing, no equivocation, no agonizing over what to do…only instantaneous and soothing instructions to deny everything, with the observation that if she lied about it and he lied about it, no one else could prove anything.
People who are honest in all other aspects of their lives do not go around for decades cheating on, lying to and manipulating wives, mistresses and one-night stands, and they don’t have college professors becoming amused at the naive notion that it’s naive to expect candor and honesty from them…even if they are running for president!
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
We’ve got 27 (and counting) new Dem House members, and 6 new Dem Senators, that replaced GOP Congresscritters. Let’s have some names of these “many” conservative Dems, and then we can find out where they stand on the issues.
[/QUOTE]
A summary from Media Matters:
I think the whole “conservative Democrats won” meme is just an excuse for conservatives to try to paint themselves as not being out of touch with the American mainstream.
:smack:
Ahem…please forward that last sentence to the Department of Redundancy Department.
Thank you.
I think we have an adequate response to the OP. Will the “conservatives” reclaim their party from the assortment of party hacks who placed their party above their country? Will they give us a functioning Republican party that runs not on absolute corruption, but on a desire to do what is right? Will they join in a bipartisan manner with the Democratic leadership to help solve some of the problems that now seem so insurmountable?
We probably won’t know, because their members include those who want to sidetrack the discussion to rant and rave about Clinton!
Oh well, we’ll just have to make a go of it without them. Somehow I have the image of the good conservatives being in a rapidly flooding compartment on a submarine. Unfortunately for them, sometimes you have to shut the hatch to save the rest of the ship.
Well, we told them that a screen door was a bad idea…
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
We probably won’t know, because their members include those who want to sidetrack the discussion to rant and rave about Clinton!
[/QUOTE]
Oh, please! I’ve been forced to look at this silly bit of hooey that spoke- has been posting for at least the last two days, and when I finally get fed up with its underlying disingenuousness and try to post an answer that covers all the bases, I’m ‘sidetracking the discussion’ to rant and rave about Clinton.
You probably haven’t noticed, but I rarely bring up Clinton on my own. It’s usually only after someone has tried to portray him as Mr. Wonderful, or as being picked on unfairly for what are actually his own deficiencies of character and behavior, that I tend to get into the act.
If you don’t want criticism of Clinton, don’t try to portray him as a picked-upon innocent.
I personally find it amusing how some long-time SDMB conservatives are now loudly proclaiming their innocence and closeted Democratic roots in the wake of last week’s election results. 
Que?
No mas! No mas!
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
:smack:
Ahem…please forward that last sentence to the Department of Redundancy Department.
Thank you.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t worry - we already do that with pretty much everything you say.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
No mas! No mas!
[/QUOTE]
Quitter. 
No sir! I have never wavered in my firm committment to cowardice! When the going gets tough, I’m already gone.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Don’t worry - we already do that with pretty much everything you say.
[/QUOTE]
Can’t say that I blame you…today, anyway.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
No sir! I have never wavered in my firm committment to cowardice! When the going gets tough, I’m already gone.
[/QUOTE]
Uh, oh…you haven’t just been elected to anything, have you?