To paraphrase Twain. When I read comments like this one from David Kuo, I laugh because I’ve been through many iterations of the death of liberalism or conservatism and yet, we are still fighting the battle of ideas that we have fought all my adult life (30 years and counting 🙂

Reassembling the Reagan coalition has become the sniipe hunting of the Republican party. The great stories of Reagan’s wooing of blue- collar Democrats are told. The old Reagan coalition organizations tell of their once heroic feats in defeating Carter and Mondale. But the reality is that coalition has been on the shelf for a very long time. One need look no further than Fred Thompson for the latest proof of its dustiness.
Thompson was to be the new Reagan – tall and sporadically employed by Hollywood. He was a strong conservative with a folksy way. He was conservative – really conservative – a tax cutting, welfare slashing, foreign aid reducing, military increasing, terrorist fighting, no nonsense fiscal conservative. He was the one who would bring it all together.
Not so much.

The reason that Thompson couldn’t get traction is because everyone ran to the right of each other, they all ran as Reagan even when they governed on the left. Go read Huckabee’s platform, if Huckabee had governed that way, I would have supported him. Go read Romney’s website, he’s certainly trying to assemble the coalition. Even McCain is running from his record and embracing tax cuts and protecting the boarder. And I can’t see how much more Rudy could mention Reagan and what does he hit McCain on? The 50 times he voted against tax cuts.
Who won in SC? A man who got 33% of the vote and were saying that the Reagan coalition is dead over 33%? Why do you think he won? Because he’s a maverick? That’s not what he ran on, he ran on defense (go check out his ads). What about Huckabee? He ran as a conservative Christian and that’s who voted for him. So far we’re at 63% of the vote for defense and social conservative issues. What about Romney, Thompson and Rudy? They all ran as conservatives and even Ron Paul’s supporters include those who believe in limited government. So, what’s new here? All of the base showed up and voted for different candidates. But eventually we’ll get to one candidate and he’ll run on defense, lower taxes, and social conservative issues or he will lose parts of the base (which demonstrates the importance of Reagan’s coalition).
And even if the country rejects our candidate and we couldn’t coalesce around him, I know that after 4 to 8 years of the failed policies of liberalism, the country will move to the right. How can I be so sure? Because when I was a teenager, I sat in a gas line with a 1965 Chevy Impala kicking myself for buying such a gas guzzler and cursing the president (Jimmy Carter, of course) for getting us in this mess. I didn’t know it then but I became a conservative that day. I knew that when the government messed it up, my life would be impacted and what I wanted to make sure was that it never happened again.
Experience is the best teacher.