"Hill on the Hill" on Hill in 2008

Hill on the Hill has a nice piece connecting an article on the general negative impact of Pelosi/Clinton on Democratic House candidates-- and the particular candidacy of Baron Hill in 2008. His conclusion is worth a few comments:

I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen if Speaker Pelosi and Senator Clinton visit Indiana's three conservative congressional districts currently held by Democrats. Can you imagine how helpful a picture of Sen. Clinton, Rep. Pelosi, and Rep. Baron Hill would be? It would help 9th District voters really visualize what kind of congressman they have.

Of course, Pelosi would not be invited and a Clinton appearance would be nominal if at all. Hill is too smart to connect himself so directly to Clinton or especially Pelosi. That said, the Republicans will link him to Pelosi and Co. all day long. The question is whether that will be their only/primary strategy...

Bad news for your opponent is not good news for you unless you know how to use that information to buttress your position. Republicans can't sit back and wait for Democrats to self implode; that simply won't happen...No, if we're going to win and then continue to maintain a majority, we're going to have to throw cautious political calculation to the wind and pursue an aggressive agenda of common sense.

A huge point...Good attacks will probably not be enough in 2008-- in this district or in general-- for Republican candidates.

What Republicans need to do is imitate, Ronald Reagan and run on conservative common-sense principles. It won't be enough to just pay lip-service to the principles of limited government, low taxes, less government regulation, and the important cultural and spiritual values like the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and parental rights.

Good luck with that! The problem in a nutshell is that so few GOP politicians are true conservatives (of any stripe). And those who (supposedly) have conservative tendencies are under enormous pressure to conform to the big-government Republicanism of their peers in power-- and typically, knuckle under.

While I don't agree with conservatives on all aspects of government, I have far more agreement with them than with most Republican politicians. But for now, most Republican politicians want to spend money like drunken sailors, are incoherent on illegal immigration, only get around to trying to end taxpayer financing of Planned Parenthood when they become the minority party, and so on.

How do you get largely unprincipled politicians to find principles?