Are moderates good or bad for the Republican Party

Hello Folks,
I wanna thank all of you all who took my poll recently. The results came back with more than half of all who voted believing that keeping a democrat out of the white house is far more important than insuring a Republican will be conservative.

This alarms me a little bit. It seems after 8 years of George Bush, a Republican who believes in expanding governments role and letting spending get out of control, that Republicans have moved away from the right.

So this leads me to ask, are moderate Republicans bad for the party? Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" lead Bush to focus on the issues of poverty and addressing the global aids epidemic. While this is does not make bush a moderate, the way he went about it was.

Almost 8 years later and now Republicans have lost both the house and the senate. I believe part of this came from the Republicans in congress taking George Bush's lead and ignoring the free market conservatism that made them great during the 1990's.

Now, many in congress are alienating moderate Republicans. Tom Davis has received a backlash from the conservative base in his district because of many votes against tax cuts (such as the 1994 contract with American tax cut and voting against the troop surge). Many now contend that this infighting with moderates caused a great deal of problems that also lead to the republican defeat.

I personally believe that moderates are pulling us away from the right, and the right is the reason Republicans win. Republicans lost in 06 because we ran to the left while Democrats ran to right, and look how that turned out.

We Republicans need to stick to our Goldwater- Reagan roots, without those we have nothing.

Your opinions please!!!! Leave comments and take the poll