Republicans have long maintained that good policy will ultimately be good politics, even if in the short term it is not always so...if Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Barry Goldwater, and Reagan (not to mention the framers of the Constitution) have been invalidated--if the laws of economics and the laws of human nature have changed so that centralized state power no longer threatens prosperity, liberty, or civic virtue--then by all means, the argument for limited government should be allowed to slide into disuse. -Andrew E. BuschI had the impression, could be mistaken, that Milton Friedman was essentially the architect of compassionate conservatism. I've defined it to myself as the compromise to allow the GOP to exert some conservative influence on the country, instead of none (since electorally promises to shrink government just loses).