THE END OF CONSERVATISM IN AMERICA?

Since 2001, I've been used to a generally monolithic conservative ideology and I think that may be collapsing, in part due to Newt Gingrich & Ron Paul.  Paul provides a sensible alternative to neo-con foreign policy which is appealing to enough conservatives to reveal a serious fissure in the movement.  Gingrich (and Perry) has done America a real favor by going after Mittens for his vulture capitalist career.  This issue is not whether Gingrich's attacks are well-founded but how he has enlarged the acceptable conservative discourse about capitalism.

This has put many conservative propagandists like Rush Limbaugh in a bind because they have had to both defend Newt and attack him simultaneously.

Just as telling is the reaction to Newt's claim to be a "Reagan conservative."  It doesn't matter that he's wrong but it does matter that major conservative outlets like the NRO debunk his claim. Jeffery Lord has tried to defend Newt on this issue and unwittingly reminds us that the Raygun Mythology is bunk:

In other words, Newt was picking up on a concern, prominent in the day and voiced by no less than Reagan's then ex-UN Ambassador Kirkpatrick, not to mention prominent Reagan supporters Will and Kristol and the late-Mondale aide turned conservative Krauthammer, that Reagan's anti-Communist policies could be stronger if better institutionalized and not tied as much to the Reagan persona.

This is an another admission, like the earlier one by NRO's Ponnuru, that conservatives were far from being united in their support of St. Ronnie. Because Raygun is the conservatives' version of FDR, this can only harm the movement.