Mark Foley is not the reason Republicans are going to lose in November.

The cover the story this month on Time magazine is about the end of the conservative republican revolution. It talks about how the Republican Party has strayed away from its ideals over the years. This is true…but then it emphasizes that the Mark Foley scandal was the real deal breaker… The last straw that broke the camels back…Mark Foley ruined what was left for republicans and he is why they are going to lose in November according to Time and the rest of the media… The fact is, the Republicans lost the House and maybe the Senate a long time ago, way before Mark Foley. In fact, Mark Foley has very little, if anything at all, to why the Republicans are about to lose the House and possibly the Senate.

The main reason is that the Republican Party has strayed away from their core conservative values of a smaller, less intrusive, and fiscally responsible government.

The government has grown faster and bigger than any other time in history under this republican leadership. Even after you take away the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan there has never been a Congress that has spent as much money like the current Republican Congress has. Republicans have basically become borrow and spend liberals.

The Republican Party is unwilling to take advantage of their majority and get things done. A good example would be Social Security reform. The privatization of Social Security, a reform with core conservative principles like personal responsibility, freedom of choice, with little government intrusion, could have become a reality if there had been enough republicans with the back bone to support it.

Iraq. This fact has to be faced...the public is frustrated and running out of patience with the war in Iraq. We're 3 1/2 years into the war; we're still occupying and trying to rebuild a country with no end in sight and casualties continuing to mount. The American public simply does not have the stomach for it anymore. Of course the Democrat Party has made it difficult to solve the Iraq problem. However, the Republican Party is in the majority and should never have allowed the Democrat Party to force us into a passive aggressive approach to this war.

Not promoting the good economy. The economy that we are currently in has never been better. We are experiencing one of the biggest economic booms in our history right now. Wages are up, unemployment is down...growth is up...the deficit is shrinking. Yet for some reason, the GOP is MIA on promoting this.

Oh, by the way the Dow Jones hit 12,000 dollars today!!! That is an all time high.

For some reason though, republicans have failed to spread this good news allowing the media to convince people that things aren’t so good out there. This is a real head scratcher for me.

Illegal immigration. The one issue that the Republican Party could have rode to victory in November. The American people universally want to see action taken on...and the Republicans aren't doing a thing about it. But instead, they acted like Democrats...and now voters are about to make them pay.

Another thing I think could have saved the Republican Party is if they would have got behind the FairTax as a party.

The list goes on an on ... McCain-Feingold Act, earmarks, stem cell research ...

The media would like for you to believe that Mark Foley is the reason the speaker's gavel will be in Nancy Pelosi's hand. But it goes far, far beyond Mark Foley.

The reason the republicans are going to lose the house and possibly the Senate is because disgruntled conservatives like me are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils.

Conservatives like me are just not going to vote… I know what you are going to say not voting is the same as voting for democrats. Well maybe, but at least I didn’t have to waist any gas to get to the polls to oust the current leadership.

Lets face it...the only thing republicans have going for them is they are not democrats!! Sorry, but that is just not enough to get me to vote for them anymore.