If that’s the case, why are so many of the candidates invoking Reagan? Are they attempting to appeal to just a fraction of the base? I guess Huckabee’s campaign needs this to be true since he’s only able to attract the social conservatives:

“It’s gone,” said Ed Rollins, who once worked as President Reagan’s political director and recently became Mr. Huckabee’s national campaign chairman. “The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition – social conservatives, defense conservatives, antitax conservatives – it doesn’t mean a whole lot to people anymore.”
“It is a time for a whole new coalition – that is the key,” he said, adding that some part of the original triad might “go by the wayside.”

If it’s gone, that would be a shame because I would no longer have a reason to support the Republicans. But I think it lives in the Thompson campaign.
(via)

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