The bench mark of a conservatiuve ideology is being suspicious of cahnge and resistant to it unless it can be porioved necessary.

In a decent society that would mean that being liberal and being conservative would mean the same thing.   

In the States it would seem pretty obvious that any genuine conservative would be passionately defending the remnants of the New Deal, now that it is an Old Deal and under attack from Right-Wing Ideologues with a radical agenda, who clearly have no respect for the traditional values it represents.

Issues like gun control and the death penalty are not ones which properly belong in the party political sphere at all.