“Today’s GOP is pretty much rudderless — they’ve been mooching for the past 20+ years off the intellectual foundations laid in the ‘60s and ‘70s by the likes of Mr. Buckley and Mr. Reagan. “
Reagan showed the Repubs how to win and to defeat the left. Rather than learn from him, Bush 1 rejected those policies and the repubs have never looked back. They choose not to learn from the most successful repub presidency since Lincoln. Its gross stupidy or incompetence.
I think it's actually more serious than that. If it were simply a matter of rejecting policies, the GOP wouldn't be where it is today. Bush 1 rejected (and I think never really understood) the intellectual underpinnings on which those policies were based.
That's the only explanation for his puzzlingly issue-less non-candidacy in 1992; not to mention that quick and suicidal reversal, on his only unambiguous promise ("no new taxes!") -- with no compensating concessions on the part of the Democrats.