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Posted on 04/26/2013 7:48:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The unfailing reverence on the American right for Ronald Reagan is understandable. He was the only exemplar of modern conservatism to win the White House, and unlike liberal icons such as Roosevelt or Johnson or Obama, he presided over an economic boom and became beloved by voters not normally drawn to his party. No wonder that Reagan, long before his death in 2004, attained mythical status in the conservative movement and the Republican Party.
But that myth has become a burden for the modern GOP. It has bound Reagan’s followers on the right to policies and positions that were time-specific. The old guard has become convinced that Reagan’s solutions to the problems of his time were the essence of conservatism — not simply conservative ideas appropriate for that era.
Today’s Republican Party, however, faces legions of voters and candidates who came of age politically after Reagan’s eight years in office. An entire generation recalls him vaguely as a genial, optimistic president who stood up for America in the Cold War.
The Republican Party can remain a Ronald Reagan historical society, or it can try to endure as a force in national politics. But it can’t do both. The choice matters greatly, for there is no guarantee that the GOP will retain its ability to win national elections or that conservatism has a future as a national governing philosophy.
The Republican Party may survive, but only if its politicians, activists, donors and intellectuals rethink modern conservatism and find new issues to defend and new arguments with which to defend them. The public face of the GOP can no longer be aging, ill-tempered Reaganites such as John McCain and Jim DeMint but must give way to a diverse, media-savvy generation that understands the America we actually live in.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Stinkin’, that is.
El Rushbo is going to have a cow if he reads this. And I wouldn’t blame him.
Limbaugh’s theory is that more politicians in the GOP should be like Reagan and stick to their conservatism than should abandon it.
The unfailing reverence on the American right for Ronald Reagan is understandable. He was the only exemplar of modern conservatism to win the White House, and unlike liberal icons such as Roosevelt or Johnson or Obama, he presided over an economic boom and became beloved by voters not normally drawn to his party.
I would have enjoyed the article had it ended here.
I do think a more libertarian Republican presidential candidate could be more successful. Reagan came from the Goldwater wing of the Republican party, not the Rockefeller wing. Goldwater and Reagan were considered "small-l" libertarian in their day. Just read "Conscience of a Conservative" or listen to Reagan's early speeches.
As for Reagan being a man of the past, Reagan was beyond time. Reagan continues to give us the answers.
Kaus ran against Boxer for Senate in CA because “she wasn’t liberal enough.” He is a moonbat extraordinaire.
WP
SFTU
GTFO
and
FOAD
No Rubio.
That appears to be the problem. The GOP “got over” Ronald Reagan quite some time ago.
Asking Jennifer Rubin to write about the Republican Party is like hiring Willie Sutton to work at your bank.
Republicans should stop invoking the name of Reagan because it makes them hypocrites. The minute he walked out of the Oval office the last time they dumped his small government philosophy and never looked back.
Sadly, at one time, he was. Then McCain was influenced by people like Jennifer Rubin and "grew" in his political views. Then he became the media's favorite Republican because he would criticize his former allies.
Isn't that special?
LOL. Does the WP think the Dems should get over FDR and JFK?
Rubin was born in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia, and moved with her family as a child to California in 1968.
She attended college and law school at the University of California, Berkeley. Before moving into journalism, Rubin was a labor and employment lawyer in Los Angeles, working for Hollywood studios, for 20 years
In January 2010, Rubin authored an article for Commentary Magazine asking “Why Jews Hate Sarah Palin”. The article was criticized by Heather Horn writing in The Atlantic as “illogical, poorly-argued, and anti-Semitic”.
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