As Reagan era closes, Republicans lack shared identity
Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: August 28, 2008
DENVER — They'll praise him, invoke his legacy and summon his blessing on their quest to hold the White House.
But as Republicans gather at their national convention in St. Paul, Minn., to nominate Sen. John McCain, they face the prospect that the era of Ronald Reagan is ending after dominating their party and American politics for nearly three decades.
The winning coalition that Reagan built of economic, foreign policy and social conservatives is splintered. The issues he used to define the party have changed. And the national rejection of an unpopular president — Jimmy Carter — helped Reagan launch a political revolution but now benefits the other party as Democrats rally against the legacy of George W. Bush.
"It doesn't look good at all," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist who helped the party seize control of the House of Representatives in 1994. "They can't recreate the Reagan coalition. Life has changed. America's priorities are different."
Indeed, 2008 could punctuate a turning point in the way that Americans view the role of government — a shift potentially as significant as those that ushered in rise of big-government liberalism in 1932 and the turn to modern conservatism and skepticism about government in 1980.
(Continued here.)
last updated: August 28, 2008
DENVER — They'll praise him, invoke his legacy and summon his blessing on their quest to hold the White House.
But as Republicans gather at their national convention in St. Paul, Minn., to nominate Sen. John McCain, they face the prospect that the era of Ronald Reagan is ending after dominating their party and American politics for nearly three decades.
The winning coalition that Reagan built of economic, foreign policy and social conservatives is splintered. The issues he used to define the party have changed. And the national rejection of an unpopular president — Jimmy Carter — helped Reagan launch a political revolution but now benefits the other party as Democrats rally against the legacy of George W. Bush.
"It doesn't look good at all," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist who helped the party seize control of the House of Representatives in 1994. "They can't recreate the Reagan coalition. Life has changed. America's priorities are different."
Indeed, 2008 could punctuate a turning point in the way that Americans view the role of government — a shift potentially as significant as those that ushered in rise of big-government liberalism in 1932 and the turn to modern conservatism and skepticism about government in 1980.
(Continued here.)
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