Stuttaford has been diagnosing it for a while. Henry Olsen expains Huckabee's message thus:
We can be more statist without being more secular or pacifist.
Bush's third term. And the end of American conservatism in its Goldwater manifestation.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/01/the-gops-christian-democracy/221712/
