Free Republic

So the first third of the Republican presidential race is ending. The first third is the introduction: "This is who I am, this is what I want to do, this is why you want to choose me." The campaign is announced, organized, and goes forward in key early states. The second phase is the long slog through the primary states to the convention next August in Tampa, Fla. The third and final is the election proper, in the autumn of 2012. *** The first phase was clouded by an overlay of frustration and dissatisfaction: The best weren't in the game....

Whenever Sarah Palin's name is mentioned in the same sentence as Ronald Reagan's, there is a screech of indignation, which generally comes from people who only glommed themselves onto Reagan AFTER he became President. These people used Reagan to advance their own careers, but now set themselves up as experts on all things Reagan and arbiters of who can, and who cannot, be fairly compared to the Gipper. [For example, you never hear such criticisms voiced by those who actually campaigned for Reagan in 1976 like Mark Levin or the "St. Paul of the Conservative Movement", Rush Limbaugh who came...

And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off. It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."