The GOP and the Middle Class

The Republican Party typically moves to the right after defeat. Hence, Reagan after Nixon and Ford, and Gingrich after Bush. Will it work again? In today's New York Times, Ramesh Ponnuru writes "moving right will work only if moderates are given a reason to move right too." The key is not "moving to the middle" but "moving to the middle class." John McCain "somehow believed that he could win a presidential election without a coherent middle-class economic agenda, and conservatives never thought to demand one from him." His campaign abandoned discussions of his innovative, conservative health care policy for insinuations about Bill Ayers. In the end, 60 percent of voters believed that McCain was not "in touch with people like them."