For years I have asked myself: how is it that the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) -- the "elite," big-government statists -- control the Republican Party?  In the 1992 election, George H.W. Bush,  Reagan's successor , blew away any prayer of his re-election by reneging on his now-infamous promise, "read my lips: no new taxes."  But he was a  kinder, gentler conservative -- in other words, a RINO.  And the country got Bill Clinton.

In 1996, the Republican RINO elite anointed the colorless Robert Dole to be the party standard-bearer.  Dole was a dull speaker who had the awkward rhetorical style of talking about himself in the third person.  And the country got Bill Clinton, again.

The year 2000 was when RINOs threw their conservative Republican base a curveball in the person of George W. Bush.  Although a big-government statist, as are all RINOs, Bush managed to sell himself as a conservative and got the nomination.  But , thank God , the country did not get Albert Gore.  And four years later, thank God again, the country did not get John Kerry.

But true to RINO form, George W. did as all big-government statists do: he greatly expanded the welfare state.  In 2008, in open collusion with the Democrats, he used taxpayers' money to bail out collapsing  investment firms and corporations that were deemed "too big to fail."

John McCain , the self-styled "maverick," who prided himself on sticking it to his Republican Senate colleagues by almost routinely siding with Democrats on key issues, was the RINOs' Chosen One in the 2008 election debacle.  His campaign was dead-on-arrival until he chose an authentic conservative, Sarah Palin, as his running mate.  That move provided a faint glimmer of hope until (about thirty seconds after the announcement) Palin was mercilessly and repeatedly run through the liberal media shredder -- not that it really mattered much in the end.  His candidacy was a hopelessly lost cause, Sarah Palin or not.

In fact , McCain was so pathologically incapable of making even but the mildest criticisms of Obama that  I had to wonder if McCain wasn't all along tacitly conceding the election to The One Who Was Waiting for Himself.  I also wonder if, after the 2008 election , Obama covertly thanked the RINOs for practically handing him the presidency.  If I were a Democrat operative, I'd think of  RINOs as a bunch of my best friends.

Every election cycle, we Republicans do our duty and vote for our candidates in the belief  (more like the false hope of the damned) that they will remain true to their campaign promises -- or at least to most of them.  But the aftermath of the 2010 elections was yet another installment in an agonizing and unending series of  betrayals of the Republican conservative base by the RINO elites.  It mattered nothing to them that the House was all but overrun by the Republicans and that the Democrat grip on the Senate was loosened.

Elite party mandarins -- Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell, to name two of the most guilty -- acted like the feckless political hacks they are.  They caved in on the debt limit extensions, a balanced budget, and the list goes on.  They negotiated with Democrats where there was no need.  They submitted to the Obama administration's unprecedented usurpations of power with hardly a squeak of complaint.  And Boehner , exercising his own spineless leadership technique, whined that Republicans controlled only one third of the government -- a lame excuse for their lack of action if there ever was one.

The current crop of non-establishment Republican presidential hopefuls is accidentally proving that the way to conquer is to divide.  Among Santorum, Perry, and Gingrich, the Republican conservative base vote will be fragmented, and only to RINO Mitt Romney's advantage.

The only hope I see of preventing Romney's nomination is for the three non-establishment candidates to put their egos aside; come together as patriots first, politicians second; and, among themselves, decide which one of them will challenge Romney the RINO.  I know that the chances of this are less than those of a sudden reversal of earth's rotation on its axis.  But one can wish.

This 2012 election is the endgame of our times.  It is between those intent upon preserving and rebuilding our constitution-based civil society and those bent on radical revolution: a revolution whose objective is political anarchy and societal chaos.  The result will be the eradication of our freedom, and not only our nation, but the rest of what remains of the free world will plunge into a totalitarian Dark Age from which America will not recover in our lifetimes.

Now, back to my question: how is it that the RINOs control a political party with an essentially conservative base despite the fact that RINOs are only kinder, gentler versions of statist Democrats?

Answer: RINOs are more than merely the Beltway brothers of the Democrats; in fact, they are unfettered by the latter's totalitarian zeal and ideological mania.  RINOs are motivated by hubris and blinded by conceit; they know how the world really works and cynically use the conservative but gullible Republican voters by putting on a phony conservative mantle at election time.  They know that conservatives will vote for the Republican candidate, RINO or not.  It is their time-tested exploitation of the Vote for the Lesser of the Two Evils Principle.

RINOs, it must be understood, are committed to the preservation of their own power and status even if it means playing "dhimmi" to their Democrat masters.  Obama's re-election holds no consequences for them as they see it.  And if the  Universal  Principle of Cause and Effect were to be temporarily suspended, and Romney magically defeated Obama, what's to lose?  Status quo either way.

Well.  Unless we all wake up on election day morning , November 6,  2012 and do not see the sun rising in the west.  Then we will know that we are doomed!  And we will also know that the Mayan calendar's purported December expiration date for our universe has nothing to do with it.