Time Magazine's cover story this week breathlessly wonders if the GOP is an endangered species.

I doubt it. The political fortunes of each of our only slightly different major parties shift from election to election. The GOP is no more dead than the Democrats were in 1994 or 2002. Sometimes I think our view of history is so limited. Sweeping changes don't happen overnight. In fact, sweeping changes rarely even happen in the course of 6 or 7 years, unless we're talking about the plague.

Anyway, speaking of plagues, since our two major parties basically offer voters small variations on the overall theme of "Yay! Government!" it's hard to imagine that just one of them could be radically out of step with the voting public. Sadly, they're not. McCain got 46% of the vote. That's not a dead party, that's a losing party, and those are two different things.

The Time article takes the position that the Republican party stands for "strong defense, traditional values and economic conservatism". Really? If that's the case, then good riddance. I mean, sadly, that really is the case. So, the problem isn't that the American public has suddenly shifted from the right to the left, it's that the Republican party shifted from the right to the further right.

What I mean to say is that I debate what Time claims the essential Republican values are. Maybe some people think that being a conservative means that, but I don't. I don't think Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan thought so either. "Economic conservatism" is not the same as small government.

To put it simply, I don't think the American public suddenly fell out of love with conservatism. I think, rather, that the Republican party bastardized the idea of conservatism and turned into something that was big government and "values" driven.

I truly believe that the traditional definition of conservatism, a la Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, is still something that's extremely appealing to the American electorate. The problem is that the GOP has strayed so far away from that that they're now nothing more than liberals in preacher's clothing.

The GOP might be dead (for now), but don't go throwing out conservatism with the Bush bathwater.