You guys are saying something that would take me to a position I'm not ready to go yet, and I say that completely ingenuously. I am not willing to accept that the Republican Party betrays its base because it is on the take until I can be unconvinced that they go wobbly at the knees because they reasonably believe that the voters will fire them if they cut services. That's why, the argument goes, that Social Security has always been known as the 3rd rail of politics and that's why the Democrats can gain majorities by demagoging these cuts.
I know Rush Limbaugh's argument, that "let Reagan be Reagan" works every time for conservatives and if we make Reagan into a Rockefeller we lose. But what evidence is there on both sides of the argument? Are we really warranted in believing that Republicans don't fear election loss in good faith? It is a different question, of course, if they are cowards for not putting their career on the line. But is there not a real argument to be made that the fault is not in the water inside the Beltway but in the hypocrisy of the voters?
