TW: Have posted on this several times already, the Republican civil war is getting started in earnest. Brooks frames the argument fairly well between the two camps one would expect: the ones who think the Republican's need to reform their message to reflect the 21st century (e.g. reflect the diversity of America, generate new policies beyond what has become tired banging of the drum for the "good, old" Reagan days) and the true believers who naturally think if the Republicans merely adhere more closely to the "Conservative" dogmas things will get better for the the Republicans.
The Republicans yearning for the days of Reagan really remind me of the Democrats of the 70's and 80's pining for FDR and trying their best to resurrect the old FDR coalition. Unfortunately for the Dems back then and probably for the Republicans now, things change. Circumstances change, people change and like most things in life the ones who change with the times thrive.
These transitions take time as the adherents of the old ways generally retain control of the party power levers for a period of time after their effectiveness has waned. For one, the last Congressional folks standing are generally the ones in the most partisan states or districts so the moderates lose office while the idealogues retain office. Secondly, the Republicans have much of their power centered in talk radio, right-wing think tanks, pundits and bloggers where the real idealogues reside.
From Brooks/NYT:
"...a group of Traditionalists met in Virginia last weekend to plot strategy...“There’s a sense that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are freer of wobbly-kneed Republicans than they were before the election,” the writer R. Emmett Tyrrell told a reporter...
The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously...Conservatives have to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters. They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/opinion/11brooks.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=login&oref=slogin
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