Theory rejected.
How can you be so sure of that? History repeats. Republics last until the people realize they can vote themselves "goodies" from the common treasury. We've long since crossed that bridge.
Consider:
When the McCain-Palin ticket was five points ahead of Obama-Biden in the Gallup poll, President Bush’s Treasury Secretary threatened that the entire financial system would collapse if Congress didn’t pass, and President Bush didn’t sign the $750 billion TARP bailout. President Bush signed TARP, both “traunches”.
Rush Limbaugh has called it “the most successful October surprise in history”. Obama immediately shot ahead of McCain after both candidates supported the TARP bill, McCain reluctantly. McCain has said that’s what cost him the election.
And back in early 2005, after President Bush was re-elected, George H.W. Bush told Larry King that Jeb would make “an outstanding President”. After the results of the 2006 election, in December 2006, President George H.W. Bush broke down in tears as he spoke about his son Jeb to a meeting of Florida legislators. It was clear that he was lamenting the end of his son’s political career.
I do not believe the Bushes are terrible people. But they are politicians, plain and simple. And they came up in the liberal (a.k.a “compassionate conservative”) wing of the Republican Party. The Bush family wants Jeb to be President, period. They are not conservatives, they are politicans.
I believe the era of kinder-gentler-thousand-points-of-compassionate-big-government-change-the-tone-Bushism is over. I do not believe the Bushes agree.