I tried.  I honestly and truly tried to get on board with the idea that the Republican Party must now jettison conservatives, make a left turn and charge hard towards the center.

I listened to all the faultless logic; I processed all the reasonable arguments; I even, for a brief time, tried to convince others that yes, it appears as if the political winds of America have shifted irretrievably away from conservatism.

That's right, in the disappointing aftermath of election night I swallowed it, and for a few days I even managed to keep it down.  But it treated me just like cheap whiskey treats some poor sot who guzzles too much to make the nightmares go away - it poisoned my system and I regurgitated the whole mess.  I flushed it from my life, hopefully for good.

The United States of America does not need two left-wing parties, and in my opinion those who believe that they can make the Republican Party more palatable to left-wing voters are fooling themselves.  No Republican will ever be able to move as far left as the Leftists - the Democrats simply won't let you.

Want to talk about a path to citizenship?  They'll talk about blanket amnesty.  Want to shift all the way over to amnesty?  They'll talk about open borders.  Want to talk about taxing the rich?  They'll re-define rich.  Want to extend unemployment benefits to two years?  Three?  How about forever?

You get the picture.  We will never out-left the Left.  Trying to do so is not reasonableness - it is capitulation.  If you are a Republican, you will always be positioned to the right of what has become the Democratic Party, and hence you will forever be painted a racist, homophobic, xenophobic cretin who, shockingly, probably still believes in God.

The truth is that we must do everything in our power to preserve conservatism in our nation.  We must preserve it for our children and grandchildren, because if we let it slip away in exchange for the cheap coin of political expediency, we will be, in effect, condemning them.  We will condemn them to a world devoid of a place they can go where each man is judged on his own merits, where each man can lift himself as far and as high as his spirit and his talent will take him, where each man will be protected by the rule of law and not the whim of a someone seeking votes or favor.

I believe in compromise - most of life is compromise.  But these basic values, these core beliefs - especially in the rule of law - these must survive, and they must survive in and through us.

We owe it to the future generations of every man and woman alive on the planet today.  For the sake of a few votes are we to deny to them the pure love of existence that only true freedom brings? Are we to smother the future achievements of a free individual working in a free marketplace?  Are we to take part in the effort to make that most glorious document - the Constitution of the United States - a curious relic that has no application in the modern world?

We must not.  We must leave the light of freedom and conservatism burning in the window, regardless of the cost.  Someday, our children - all children - will seek to come home to it. 

Consider yourself a keeper of the flame.

Frank Santarpia is the founder and co-organizer of the Staten Island Tea Party www.teapartysi.com