I really urge everybody to read the CPAC 2010 straw poll results (PDF DOWNLOAD). Many have been belittling the poll, including FOXNews, because Ron Paul became CPACs candidate of choice for president in 2012. Yet if you look at the numbers, the results are rather eye-opening:

64% of respondents identified as male and 85% of all respondents to the poll are below the age of 55. This is significant given that it puts them all at odds with the media age of members of Congress (which is 56 years).

So for the vast majority of "the future" (aka, the youth and young and younger middle aged) of the conservative movement, abortion, gay marriage and immigrant criminalization are close to zilch in importance. Even national security (aka "War On Terrorism") comes in at a distant 18% as a second choice. In the first choice round is just but 8% compared to the whopping 35% of "reduce the federal government".

For reproductive rights, immigration and LGBT rights advocates, this poll is actually a treasure trove of counter-talking points.

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I developed a political ideology quiz on go to quiz. It's called Where Are You On the Political Spectrum. Please note that the site features several other similarly titled quizzes.

The possible results are Lefty, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, Wingnut and Libertarian. My results indicated that I'm a liberal. I assume most of this sites' visitors taking the test will be Lefties or Liberals. For fun forward the link to your most right wing friends.

Because with posts like Memo to the GOP: Go Gay, she pushes people like Dan Riehl to confront their moral and political relativism. The problem? Neo-cons like Riefhl don't get it. GOP2.0ers like Kristen Soltis of "The Next Right", do.

BTW: Am totally fangirling on Meghan. Her battle is totally quixotic and, given El Quijote is my favorite book in the world (well, it's #1 in a long list), I love her for that.

I got this video clip via Andrew Sullivan via Memeorandum. Two things immediately jump out of this video.

1. What the Southern Avenger says here is in line with what a lot of liberals and progressives have been saying for the last eight years : That people like George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin are extremists and not conservatives at all.

2. Exactly because the argument of this video is that true conservatives are against the war, I find interesting that Andrew Sullivan doesn't waste time to call out the author a paleo-conservative. And yet, if you go to the guys' website ... paleoconservative is the last word to come to my mind.

What do you think?

At least one newspaper in Pennsylvania has decided to cancel Ann Coulter's column and several advertisers, including Verizon, have pulled their advertising from her website.

Michelle Malkin went all prim and proper on Coulter's verbal grenade, because it sullied the forthright image of conservatives; meaning it's going against their meme campaign to paint themselves as morally superior than the foul-mouthed bloggerss they were able to ouster from the Edwards campaign or that yucky liberal pundit Bill Maher.

By the way, some think Ann Marie Cox is a skank compared to Coulter. Then there's Tucker Carlson saying she called him gay once but he didn't cry about it.

Rush Limbaugh and GOsPindrones everywhere have been trying to paint 'faggot' as a synonym of 'wuss' and the applauses Ann Coulter got as a demand within the party for the kind of angry and offensive leadership Ann Coulter portrays. Right-wing bloggers everywhere have been all too fast to stay on message about their moral superiority meme and have gone of the defensive.
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Location

I suppose this was to be expected; being unused to defeat and enmeshed in their discredited ideology to the detriment of common sense, conservatives are claiming that the thrashing received by their party and their candidates on Tuesday was actually, somehow, a victory. Karol over at Alarming News opines:

We have work to do but we're already ahead of the curve because we've seen the American people embrace conservative principles. Democrats had to run to the right to win. That's a success for conservatism, even if its a loss for Republicans.

The snarky response would be that America needs more conservative successes like the one we just saw – many more. But even in terms of actual results, this narrative doesn't withstand scrutiny. I recall that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, seventeen years ago today, some communists in the Soviet bloc rejoiced, claiming this was a welcome development that would allow real communism to flourish; it stands to reason that the ideological cousin of communism, authoritarian conservatism, would make similar claims.

However, this election was a victory for a new coalition of centrists and Progressives. Consider, via Media Matters and DailyKos:
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