That's a pretty keen insight. Thanx.
I was a Fred Thompson fan, but after seeing your comments about senators running for President, I think back to what I saw as some of Fred's drawbacks, and that "Senate collegiality" was a hallmark he had, too.
A few years ago we had Republican governors running out our ears. Wonder what happened to all of those GOP governors? They can't all have been named Bush or turned out to be cheeseburgers.
You have had a lot of Dems running for Gov in red states running as conservatives. Sebilius in KS, Schweitzer in MT, Strickland in OH, Manchin in WV, etc.,
You still have good Republican governors in Riley in AL, Barbour in MS, Jindal in LA, Sanford in SC, Palin in AK
But then you have RINO types that think they have to run as RINO’s because they are in blue states. Rell in CT, Pawlenty in MN, etc.
I think too that republicans have destroyed their brand to the point that “Conservatism” isn’t exclusively owned by Republicans any more. Dems are winning Governorships, House and Senate races running as conservatives. Regular folks don’t care if Howard Dean is the chairman of the DNC or if the Dem platform is pro-abort. If the candidate in the race shares their values, they will vote for them. That is exactly what the dems have pulled off the last two election cycles.
The question for the dem party is, do these conservatives they are electing change the party to be more reflective of them, or do they end up leaving the party if the institutional democrats remain liberal. I think the end result is the latter, but the Republican party has to reclaim the banner of Conservatism, or else there will be a third party and Republicans will become the whigs.