In retrospect it amazes me just how improbable the modern Republican coalition really was. Cooked up in the mix of interest groups who voted Republican from Reagan through Bush 2 are business cons who absolutely depend on illegal immigration and nativists who will never rest until they end it, you have fiercely anti-Catholic evangelicals and Catholic partisans. Some credit goes to the guy convinced imperialist big-government Trotskyite communists-turned-neoconservatives, Libertarians, panty-sniffing sex crusaders and William F. Buckley to pull the same lever for any meaningful period of time. The job called for some brilliant, evil sick fucks; too bad the GOP ran out of the brilliant kind.
For anyone who thinks that John McCain will bring back the old mojo, I suggest you start drinking now.