GOP faces identity crisis

From McClatchy Newspaper:

COLUMBIA, S.C. - When Republican presidential candidates debated this week over which one has the best conservative credentials, not one mentioned George W. Bush as a model.


Indeed, just seven years after he won his party's nomination and the White House vowing to put his "compassionate conservative" stamp on the movement of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, Bush instead leaves the Republican Party with an identity crisis, struggling to answer the question:

What exactly is a conservative in the coming post-Bush era?


Is it still important to rein in the federal government? Conservatives once thought so. But Bush and a Republican-led Congress let spending escalate, pushed through the biggest expansion of an entitlement program - Medicare - since the 1960s, and expanded the power and bureaucratic reach of the Department of Education.


Does it matter if the government balances its budget? They once thought that crucial and long pushed a constitutional amendment to mandate it. Yet Bush let deficits and debt soar, as Reagan did before him.
What's the right balance between national security and civil liberties when the federal government wants to spy on Americans without warrants? Or when it wants to take away the right to own a gun for any American who's suspected - but not charged or convicted - of ties to terrorism?

These questions underscore some of the angst in the Republican Party about the leading candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination, each of whom shuns at least part of the Bush legacy and defines his own conservatism on terms he thinks will help him win the nomination and the White House.
Conservatives are left fractured, turned off by Bush's record, torn by the sometimes competing principles Bush put in play and unwilling thus far to align behind any new leader.

KEY DATES IN MODERN CONSERVATISM:

1953: Russell Kirk publishes "The Conservative Mind."
1955: William F. Buckley founds National Review.
1960: Barry Goldwater publishes "The Conscience of a Conservative."
1964: Goldwater runs for president; loses but inspires new generation of conservatives.
1976. Ronald Reagan loses Republican nomination challenge to President Gerald Ford.
1978: California voters pass Proposition 13 cutting taxes, starting tax rebellion.
1980: Ronald Reagan elected president.
1981: Economic Recovery Tax Act cuts income tax rates by 25 percent.
1994: Republicans win House and Senate.
1996. Republican Congress passes welfare overhaul; Democrat Bill Clinton signs it.
2001: Congress cuts taxes; Bush signs it.