Experience has made them suspicious. Evans fancies himself something of a humorist, but his law resonates with most conservatives. These are people who have worked to elect men and women to office who, once they've been sworn in, too often ignored them and went off in directions no one would have expected when they were mere candidates.
Conservatives have another word for it.
This has happened often enough to make conservatives suspect that it is always just about to happen again. Thus, many were almost as leery of the newly elected Ronald Reagan in 1981 as they had been of Richard Nixon in 1969. They held their breath, hoped for the best and feared the worst - that their hero of so many years would cease being one of them once he took office. With all of this water under the bridge and the experience of watching his father's administration self-destruct, it is little wonder that many conservatives were slow to accept Texas Gov. George W. Bush at his word when he said he was one of them. It isn't that they didn't want to believe him, but that they weren't sure they could.