… Thompson never made clear how he would differ from the current administration in those areas where it was most ruinous for the reputation of the party and the name of conservatism.

Exactly right. If either of the supposedly “conservative” candidates - by whom I mean Thompson and Romney - had been willing to stand up and actually /criticize/ the (foreign and domestic) ineptitude of the past seven years, and call out the Republican establishment, and the Bush administration in particular, on what it has become - a wasteful, incompetent, fraudulent betrayal of nearly all of what the American conservative movement has stood for - then he’d very likely have my vote, and would likely have peeled away many of the others who have been tempted to support McCain or Huckabee. But as it happens, they’ve spent most of their time doing their damnedest to parrot the standard talking points and so align themselves with that establishment and show the depth of their pledge to continue the Bush legacy, both at home and abroad.

Whether or not I agree with their views, hearing McCain and Huckabee - and, of course, the incomparable Ron Paul - actually stand up from time to time and speak to the immense shortcomings of what the GOP has become has been incredibly refreshing. It’s too bad that there hasn’t been a more “authentically conservative” candidate than those two who’s actually been willing to do the same. I think people underestimate the extent to which kowtowing to, and so earning the blessing of, the Republican establishment is turning into the kiss of death - not only in a national election, but in the GOP primaries as well.