All The Perspective You Need

A very interesting article at A Certain Slant Of Light about the “GOP Rearrrangement Syndrome” starting in 2000 instead of 2008.

Just to give you a taste:

Fact is, McCain’s presidency, should he prevail over Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, will in most respects - particularly vis-a-vis the war in Iraq and a patent indifference to porous borders and illegal immigration - likely walk in the footprints of Bush ’43’s. Indeed, the “paradigm shift” that Limbaugh speaks of has been largely effected over the past seven years. To be sure, it’s not just now in its nascent phase.

Frankly, I find Jonah Goldberg’s Op-Ed piece in USAToday more compelling. Reagan conservatives are not apoplectic over the prospect of a McCain-led transformation of the Republican Party away from Reagan’s principles of small government, fiscal constraint, and the federalism of the Founding. Rather, they’re still suffering from irreversible buyer’s remorse and an acute feeling of disenfranchisement vis-a-vis Bush, who campaigned in 2000 and 2004 as a conservative, but in many regards was anything but, both realities of which have been exacerbated by John McCain’s rise to presumptive nominee status, not recently jump-started.