According to some people, yes it does. Dick Morris had a piece posted yesterday about the need for the GOP to run Powell for Prez in 2004 and ignore all his leftie values if we want to "win"
They claim that Conservative values won't sell and for the survival of the Republican party this shift to center is necessary.
What they don't mention however is why in the world Conservatives would care what happened to the R's if their policies differ only marginally from the rats..
Big push on from the Ford wingers to just chuck everything Conservative and become a sick parody of algor and the party of corruption.