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First, thanks! Second, I've tried to live by a rule about the birthers. I did not always live by this rule. When I started writing about the parallel universe of Obama conspiracy theories, it was such a novelty that I posted on anything strange that I could find. It was a shock to me that the movement didn't peter out. So last summer, when it really hit the big time, I invented this rule -- only if the birtherism involves powerful people, or a way to separate activists from their paychecks, will I pay attention. So a member of Congress endorsing the conspiracy = news. Orly Taitz blogging something = good for traffic, but not news.

Just as the government of Washington, D.C. can verify my citizenship and my driver's license, the government of Hawaii has verified that Barack Obama was born there. That's where I come down these days. And I'm convinced that Democrats, who know how good the birthers are for them, crack smiles whenever someone suggests that we need to know more.

Gov. Barbour defends McDonnell

Ah, that's the cruelty of the news cycle -- had reporters gathered this weekend in Trenton for the Mid-Atlantic Republican Assembly or what have you, they would have gotten someone else to answer the question. I roll my eyes a little at the DNC's decision to pile on Barbour about this, but I understand it -- they know no Southern Republican will criticize a decision to honor the Confederacy. In his first gubernatorial campaign against Ronnie Musgrove, Barbour reminded voters of the 2001 referendum to pull the stars and bars off of the state flag. And Barbour won.

To my surprise, this didn't often come up in NOLA. Most Republicans realize that the chance of stopping an Obama nominee with 41 seats in the Senate is not just remote, but unprecedented. (Let's remember, the last judge to be denied a seat on the court, Robert Bork, faced a Democratic majority, not a Democratic filibuster.)

If Elena Kagan is nominated, as a lot of us expect, you're going to hear some under-the-rader questions about her sexuality. Same thing if Janet Napolitano is nominated. (Matt Drudge, don't think we haven't noticed that you illustrate every Homeland Security story with an ugly picture of Napolitano and the caption "BIG SIS.") I think that's the ugly answer you were looking for. What actual judicial issues? If the Goodwin Liu and Harold Koh battles are any indication, and I think they are, expect Republicans to go after what the nominee has written -- not just ruled -- about health care, international law, and guns.

No offense, but I don't generally like factoids like this. They don't appreciate all of the historical and logistical factors that went into work in those races. For one thing, literally every one of those campaigns happened under a slightly different primary system, with different amounts of time between the elections, and different states up for grabs. That said, Republicans are very forgiving of also-ran candidates who watched the guy the party nominated go down to defeat. And a lot of Republicans will tell you that Romney, for all his flaws, would never have bobbled the economic crisis the way that McCain did in 2008. How much sympathy does that get him compared to the anger out there about "Romneycare" in Massachusetts? Hard to say, but Romney is on far, far more comfortable ground defending his health care plan than he was pretending to be a social conservative. I can imagine a situation like the one we saw in the early 2008 Democratic debates, where candidates tried to drag Hillary Clinton down over her war vote but she'd gamed out their attacks 1,000 different ways.

This is a reported blog, so it's never going to be a place for my "voice" -- if I'm doing it well, it's a place to find out what conservatives are doing, saying, and thinking, with analysis but not bias. When I'm interviewed on radio or TV I look for points of agreement and ways to explain what's going on, but I wouldn't say I agree with Rachel Maddow. I actually like the tea party movement, for one. I never use the notorious word that ends with "baggers."

My personal politics are libertarian; my votes are all over the place. I voted for Ron Paul in the 2008 primary but Obama-Biden in the 2008 general election, in part because Bob Barr wasn't on the ballot. I voted for the GOP's local city council candidates. I'm still a registered Republican.

Yes, from Rick Santorum and Mike Pence, among some other speakers. It was of a piece of the cricism you've heard from conservative Republicans since, really, February 2001 -- that the problem with George W. Bush was that his "compassionate conservatism" expanded the government. Both agreed, and most attendees agreed, that the tea party-infused GOP would never make that mistake again. Were you asking about Katrina? Some reflection there, some praise of how Republicans like Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry had responded to the hurricane and how their states had rebuilt.

Only from Ron Paul. I've got my eye on that, though. There is some reluctance among congressional Republicans about supporting the effort in Afghanistan. There is, as of no, no such reluctance from the conservative base.

Thurgood Marshall was replaced by Clarence Thomas. That's really all the argument a Democrat might need on this one. All Republicans can do is work the refs a bit by demanding a moderate nominee and issuing statements about being "disappointed" when Obama picks a liberal.

It's "at least possible" that Bob Dornan makes an incredible comeback, wins the nomination, and carries 50 states. So, sure -- if a lot of lightning strikes, Palin could win the nomination and tap her hotter-than-the-center-of-the-sun support among conservatives to win it all. If Obama's support collapses, many Republicans would have the ability to take him out. But the most meaningful result of the SRLC straw poll was Palin's third place showing. She showed up, the crowd was bedecked in her merchandise, and 82% of Southern Republican activists said someone other than her should be their nominee. There's just widespread doubt that she's ready for the job.

Yes. Ask Cass Sunstein, who's pretty hard to fit into a box, but whom WorldNetDaily and Glenn Beck have (successfuly) portrayed as a raving communist. And from the GOP's perspective, anyone who believes in an evolving interpretation of the Constitution, instead of a close reading of original intent, is a liberal, unfit for the court.

There was, and it wasn't whispered. Haley Barbour explicitly asked activists to make sure tea partiers stayed within the party.

I don't think third party efforts can thrive unless the party they're siphoning from is already in power. Under those conditions, the base gets frustrated and wants to send a message. That's not the case now. Even the most Republican-hating tea partier wants to overthrow the Democrats.

That's a good catch. Gingrich has become more religious in the past few years. In 2007 he made a "confession" of infidelity to James Dobson. In 2009 he converted to Catholicism. He's spent more of his copious book-writing and documentary-producing time on political/religious material, like the documentary about the Pope's 1979 visit to Poland that he likes to promote in his speeches. I can't read his mind, but I can say that this has made him, bit by bit, more credible to religious conservatives. What's he want to do with that credibility? We'll see.

Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead." A zombie role would be preferable, but I'd settle for being a survivor.

Virtually no chance, and I say "virtually" just to allow for a situation where Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee get lost when the National Review cruise falls into the Bermuda triangle. The majority of people who vote in Republican primaries simply don't share his views on foreign policy.

I would not be surprised if Paul tests the waters. I know that some people in his camp want him to go for it. But I don't think he'd benefit from the scrutiny of another run. Remember, it took a full year for reporters to take him seriously enough to investigate his ties to some unsavory groups and views. Even then, because reporters knew he was not winning the nomination, the stories went nowhere. But that's not what would happen if he launched a new campaign and started polling in double digits. Let's see what he says after his son Rand's Senate primary.

Never, because it's not. Look, Dick Armey left Congress in 2003, and the Kochs have been funding libertarian causes for decades. But the tea parties didn't begin until 2009. There wasn't the outrage, the access to social networks, the new media, or the economic climate to make this happen, much less to let Dick Armey induce it. Yes, it's worth covering how much Fox News has done to wrangle more conservatives into this movement, but the movement started before Fox News was paying attention.

I'm often asked a point-blank question like "Do you print the truth?" Often I'm asked whether or not I agree with them. But it's very rare that the person I'm talking to gets angry at me for asking questions. By and large they're happy for the conversation and the coverage. And that's even true of the people who say things that end up bouncing around the liberal blogosphere, as representative of the "racism" or what have you within the movement.

Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is trying, with mixed success. He's affable but journalists I talk to are disappointed with his ability to seriously engage on the issues. Wayne Allyn Root, who ran for vice president in 2008 on the Libertarian ticket, is probably going to run, bolstered by the celebrity he's starting to attain on Fox News and the tea party circuit. The tragedy for Paul fans is that the man best equipped to pick up the torch was... Mark Sanford.

On the contrary, I encounter more and more skepticism of climate change. My old colleague Ron Bailey at Reason takes a lot of flak (I almost typed "heat," which would have been a pun too far) for maintaining that climate change is happening. As long as we have fairly normal seasonal weather in the United States -- especially cold winters -- you're going to hear more conservatives doubting the science.

I don't think I can create a suitable ASCII diagram for you, but there's plenty of overlap -- for now. Tea partiers are first and foremost economic conservatives. The religious right is first and foremost concerned with social issues. But right now they're working arm in arm, with social conservatives (Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins) trying to claim some of the energy of the movement, and tea partiers happily to work with these activists who, by and large, share their beliefs.

"By and large" leaves a lot of room for disagreement, though. If Republicans control every branch of government in 2013, I'd expect many tea partiers to blanch at -- and possibly protest against -- some of the priorities of, say, the Family Research Council. I meet plenty of gay, anarchist, libertarian, and just generally "leave us alone" tea partiers who absolutely despise the Ralph Reeds of the world. It's just that they have a common enemy now and they'll look past it. But the majority of tea partiers are social conservatives, even if it's not what got them into the streets, and they will have no problems working with the religious right.

That's it for me, but I had a great time. My apologies if I didn't answer your question -- come back next time or come right over to the blog and ask it!