Helen Valois has an excellent article about what "Cut and Run Conservatism" is.

Now that Rush Limbaugh has chosen to demonize conservatives acting as conservatives instead as as Republican sheep, he may discover that outside his ditto-head bubble that there are many out there unimpressed with his rhetoric.

Valois writes:

And just what is a "cut-and-run conservative"? From what I can tell, this label applies to anyone who holds the (to Rush) illogical opinion that Republicans ought to behave like Republicans, and that if they don't, there isn't much use in voting them into office again. There are evidently — gasp! — voters who want their elected representatives to represent them, and who refuse to declare the mere holding of an office on the part of someone whose use of that office is despicable a "victory" in and of itself. Even among those who chuckle at the EIB Network's clever parodies, there are apparently some people who don't consider the ideological suicide currently being committed by American culture to be a laughing matter after all. And despite being made the butt of that network's jokes myself, I am proud to declare myself one of them.

I vote for politicians who represent my views. In a representative democracy such as ours, that is the way I'd prefer to see things function. It would be interesting if Rush consideres conservatives who go to the poll but vote for a write-in candidate or a conservative third party candidate as being "cut and run" conservatives.

I also think Rush's choice to reuse the "cut and run" slogan to demonize conservatives is ultimately going to weaken the more serious issue of politicians and citizens that actually do want to "cut and run" from Iraq.

Luckily for Rush, he's on the wrong side of history. Just as the "Buy American or else" nonsense was going on in the 80s -- demanding we buy American cars no matter how crummy they were -- failed and we ended up with better cars, he should be thankful that principled conservatives will help, in the long run, to keep the party from disolving into the next Whig party.

Rush may be a great broadcaster, but he's no historian.

Read Valois's excellent article bottom of this blog.

Update: David Bernstein of Volokh Conspiracy is one too! (and gasp, also sees 1992 as a GOOD example)