And so, in the continuing tale of woe that is the Republican Party’s search for a savior who can lead it back to the Promised Land of electoral success, Bob Novak has pronounced Fred Thompson lacking in that essential quality any would-be GOP savior must possess — Ronald Reaganness. It would be tempting to slag the media for tritely reducing the Republican presidential selection process to a frantic search for “the next Reagan”, except that it’s not the media that’s doing it — it’s GOP tastemakers, from Novak to conservative web sites and opinion journals to the candidates themselves.
Thompson should be grateful to Novak for knocking down the Reagan comparisons. No mortal fares well when compared to a saint, which is how Republicans view Reagan. But a party more focused on its grand past than its promising future is a party in deep trouble. Just ask Democrats who spent the seventies and eighties conjuring the next John Kennedy and getting Jimmy Carter and Gary Hart instead. In 2004 (and even in 2000), it was common to hear Democrats bemoan the fact that if only they had a candidate who was more like Bill Clinton, they’d stand a better chance of winning. You don’t hear that in this cycle. For the most part, Democrats seem excited about their choices. Just another reason for Republicans to worry.