Uncle has a small tome up about how the Republicans managed to shrink their tent, and places the blame on George W. Bush. That is, I think, a quite an appropriate place to put the blame. Bush has not been a good thing for the Republican coalition, and as Mike Huckabee can tell you, you can’t win with just evangelicals. The interesting thing about McCain is that it wasn’t the economic conservatives that are turning out and voting for him, it’s former veterans and hawks. The economic conservatives liked Romney, which should tell you how beat up they felt under Bush.
I don’t think there’s any part of the Republican Party that doesn’t feel stepped on, except for the peace through strength crowd, and they seem to be the ones putting McCain over the top. Even Huckabee was an act of dissatisfaction among evangelicals, because other than lip service, what did Bush really accomplish for them? Of course, lip service is better than we small l libertarians got.
While it is sometimes necessary to remove gangrenous limbs, Bush seems to think a nice prescribed blood letting was a better treatment, and we’re seeing how well that has healed the patient.
Bush has been a disaster for the Republican Party and the country as a whole. Remember just ten years ago when Bill Clinton said that the era of big government was over.
Now we are on the cusp of electing a senator with the most liberal voting record to the presidency. Someone who believes that there is no problem that big government can’t solve. Before Bush, the Democratic Party had to at least pretend to believe in limited government to win a national election. No more.
Q) “…other than lip service, what did Bush really accomplish for them?”
A) “http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/”