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No, you specifically did not mention Reagan, but he not only is often invoked, he is the only conservative to gain the WH in my adult life.

As my screen name indicates, I was on the Left. I was an organizer of food co-ops in the 60s. I believed in bootstrap capitalism and still do. I am intimately aware of the agenda of the Left & I was effectively purged because self-reliance and independance is not the Leftist goal. What W and the present Republicans are doing is NOT implementing the Democratic Left's agenda at all. They are co-opting it. Each of the programs takes the core issue of the Left and subtly aims it towards privatization or, in the case of the NEA, puts retraints on the funding to get away from the culture-killing stuff. The NCLB is an accountability act and it demands performance/results in exchange for funding. Why does the Left scream so loudly if the agenda is theirs? It is not theirs and they know it and they are fighting for their lives. Who knows? At some point, the Left may demand that the Federal Government gets out of education and the Left may champion vouchers and charters for the reason that they do not want governmental control. Voila: no DOE.

The Republican Party will not go whole hog into the Leftist agenda because that is not what they want. They do not want socialism and a divided society and devalued culture and devalued education. No sane person does, including sane, moderate Democrats. Instead of trolling for Democratic votes, IMO, the Republican Party is slowly getting Americans used to being moderate to liberal Republicans. Eventually, the agenda can be further to the right than that, but they have to begin somewhere. They have to take what they find, what we have been left with after 70 years of change agents, and change it again. There is no way they could get away with just killing NEA or DOE, for example. Too many sacred cows, too many paychecks are involved. But they can move it away from social engineering of the Leftist sort and towards the social engineering of the center right sort.

You are not going to get hard right conservatism out of the Republican Party UNTIL the Left is so marginalized that there is no longer as large a constituency for it as there is now. It is conservative incrementalism. The Dems know this. The electorate is mostly oblivious and they make do w/what they have. One of the best things about Reagan was that while it was a counter-revolution, most people did so well that they loved it & didn't even know they had been co-opted. This drove the Left absolutely nuts and this is why the Bush administration drives them up a wall. Reagan allowed the Bush wins. Bush I was too much the old school patrician gentleman and he was rolled by the Dems (and that is why I voted for Perot and voting for Perot is why I will fight to keep Bush voters from going 3rd Party). The Dems knew they could not only roll Bush I, they could roll the conservatives, as well. Twofers. And it gave us Clinton.

Bush II, if he gets a 2nd term, will allow another Republican to get elected. This will ensure a lock on the Congress. Slowly, via tax cuts and spending cuts, there will be less government bureaucracy. Which will save more money. As more people become owners and investors, they all have a stake in less taxes, less spending. There are already fewer constituents for pork and hand outs, if you go by the outcry against the budget. This has already happened;the Dems are left w/the unions, such as they are and the hard core welfare class. So it is no wonder they work to degrade the culture and education so they will have more constituents for government control via handouts & more libertinism.

I doubt I'll see a hard right administration in my life time...I am 61. But my son, who is 39, may well see it. And actually, if the incrementalism works, no one will notice and it will be considered centrist, not far right. Then, the power will be divided betwen centrist and conservatives and the conservatives wil have more fertile ground for their ideas.

My contention is that you and those of your philosophical persuasion have already gotten 60% at the very least. IMO, I think you are missing the forest for the trees. I think it is unrealistic in the extreme (pardon the pun) to expect a complete roll back of 70 years of socialism in 3 years, especially w/a war and the entire world working for the Left.

Each day 1000 FDR Democrats die. Each day more children who are rebelling against the public school and public culture inculcations reach voting age & identify as Republicans. Each day that more people have more chance of ownership and control of their lives and the chance to acculmulate assets is a day closer to a USA that is full of self-reliant folks w/the self interest to understand small government.

I think our day is coming. I know the Left is counting on impatient and demanding conservatives to divide Bush's constituency so they can elevate what is left of their constituency to regain power.

Now, I absolutely have to go check out this Kerry bimbo eruption, so I will be off this thread. But I am sure we will have this conversation elsewhere.