End of an era

Yes, but the outsider has an advantage | Gene Edward Veith

"This Republican project has exhausted itself," David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, told U.S. News & World Report. "We are at the end of a historical epoch that started with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980."

Headlines after the financial bailout of Wall Street tell the same tale: "Financial Crisis Bailout Marks End of Reagan Revolution" (U.S. News & World Report). "Is Era of Dominance Over for Conservatives?" (The New York Times). "The End of American Capitalism?" (The Washington Post).

That the Reagan era—with its free markets, deregulation, and small government—is over does not depend on whether the Democrats win the presidential election. It was a Republican administration that nationalized financial institutions and spent a trillion dollars to bail out the holders of bad investments. We expect socialists to nationalize companies and liberals to practice Keynesian economics. When the heirs of Ronald Reagan do those things, his era must be over.