Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, greets state Republicans at a fundraiser for state races on April 7, 2006, in Concord, N.H. (AP/Jim Cole)

Michael Savage is exposing the rot at the heart of the Republican establishment: He is an effective, articulate and pugnacious spokesman for the disenchanted conservative base. The popular talk-radio personality hosts a daily show, “The Savage Nation,” which airs on over 370 stations and has millions of regular listeners. He is contemplating a run for the 2008 GOP nomination. His Web site (www.michaelsavage.com) has collected over 5 million signatures supporting his presidential bid.

Some say Savage has no political experience and has little chance of winning. However, the support he is gathering exposes the decay within the Republican Party. For the past decade, the GOP political elite has grown increasingly detached from the values and concerns of millions of conservative voters. Despite being trounced in the November elections, Republicans still have not learned their lesson. Many on Capitol Hill and in the White House (such as Karl Rove) are under the illusion the defeat signified nothing more than a typical midterm setback for the party in power in a president’s second term. Instead, the GOP was smashed because it lost touch with the conservative rank-and-file—the activists who form the heart-and-soul of the party. Unless Republicans repair the growing breach, they will lose again in 2008. This time the cost to the country may very well be a Hillary presidency.

Unlike many other pundits and talking heads on the Right, Savage is not a mouthpiece for the Republican Party; rather, he is a Goldwater-Reagan conservative who champions the movement’s most fundamental principles: God, country and family. He has made patriotic conservatism—what he calls the triumvirate of “borders, language and culture”—and the war on Islamic fascism the centerpiece of his show. Those 5 million signatures represent a wake-up call to the Republican Party to return to its conservative roots.

Instead, the party’s presidential front-runners represent its liberal or corporate wings. These factions may have advocates among the elite—Beltway lobby groups, policy institutes, business councils, magazine writers and newspaper editorialists—but their support among voters is thin. Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney have not caught fire with the Republican base for one simple reason: They are liberals masquerading as conservatives.

Giuliani was an effective mayor of New York, who subdued crime and guided the city after 9/11. Yet he is a rabid social liberal: he is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and pro-gun control. Moreover, under his leadership, New York was transformed into a safe haven for millions of illegal aliens. Contrary to the public myth, Giuliani was not a “law-and-order crime fighter.” Although he was tough on violent criminals, he refused to lift a finger to stop the onslaught of illegal immigration plaguing the city. Giuliani is no Reaganite. Instead, he is a Rockefeller Republican, whose support for open borders helped to undermine America’s sovereignty and the rule of law.

McCain is also part of the GOP corporate establishment, which in order to satisfy the demands of big business has sought to import an entire class of low-skill, low-wage Hispanic laborers. The Arizona Republican likes to dub himself a “maverick.” But in reality, he is a trendy liberal Republican. He is a proponent of “comprehensive immigration reform”—meaning some kind of amnesty for the more than 12 million illegals in this country. He opposed President Bush’s tax cuts. He co-sponsored the pernicious campaign finance reform law. And despite his claims to be a social conservative, McCain has never waged a frontal assault on the abortion or homosexual rights lobbies. McCain’s problem is that he has been in Washington too long: He cares more to win the good opinion of The Washington Post and Beltway liberal elites than to represent the folks in Tucson and Phoenix.

Unlike Giuliani and McCain, Romney is not a country club Republican. He is a slick con man. For example, he is trying to persuade conservatives that he was never a supporter of abortion rights while governor of Massachusetts. Unfortunately, his record indicates otherwise. His campaign aides try to claim that the failure of Romney’s candidacy to attract considerable support is due to some lingering, dark prejudice against Mormons. Yet, subtle religious bigotry is not the cause for his meager support. Romney strikes GOP primary voters as the political equivalent of a used-car salesman—someone who is willing to say and do anything to close the deal.

And this is precisely the problem not only with the GOP’s leading candidates, but with Republicans as a whole: They no longer believe in the core principles of the conservative movement. They long ago stopped caring about shrinking the size of government, securing the country’s borders, defending basic Judeo-Christian values, restoring civilized decency to our culture or winning the war in Iraq. They pay lip service to conservative principles. Yet they care only about power, perks and privileges.

Savage threatens to lay bare this decay and corruption. The 5 million voters who are urging him to make a presidential run represent a conservative cri de coeur—a growing backlash against the GOP’s ossified and anemic leadership. There is an emerging conservative counter-revolution against the excesses of New Age, post-1960s liberalism; these activists are fed up with the current crop of Republican leaders and their inept, fainthearted and defensive responses in the face of liberalism’s colossal failures.

The November midterm elections should have taught Republicans that they ignore these frustrated conservatives at their peril. If Savage urges his hard-core millions of listeners to stay home on Election Day, he can swing the ’08 election to the Democrats. By ignoring its conservative base, the GOP is on a one-way street to political defeat and permanent minority status. Lincoln, Goldwater and Reagan must be turning in their graves.

- Jeffrey T. Kuhner is the editor of Insight (www.insightmag.com).