Do Keep in Touch

Ramesh Ponnuru on the Republican party:

Most conservatives were preoccupied in this campaign with cultural issues: flag pins, 1960s radicals and the like. These issues are legitimate, and certainly easier to understand than the details of health policy.* [...] By the end of the campaign, 60 percent of voters did not think that [McCain] was “in touch with people like them” — and 79 percent of them voted against him. They thought other Republicans were out of touch, too. To recover, the party will have to prove them wrong, not just return to the conservative program of yesteryear.

The perception that John Sidney etc. was "out of touch" is directly proportional to the perception that conservatives are more worried about imaginary commies from the '6os than people's livelihoods. *Conservatives should consider themselves fortunate that the details of the McCain "Campaign Pledge to Tax Employer-Provided Health Insurance Policies of 2008" weren't more widely understood.