GOP: Fat, Complacent, Lazy

I guess conservatives thought they'd never have to worry that a candidate for President of the United States would openly espouse wealth redistribution and gain votes because of it. The liberals, we were led to believe, would use subterfuge, skulduggery, artifice, guile, all the tricks in their bag. Aided by the mainstream media, these politicians would sneakily obtain positions of power and then enforce hidden socialist tendencies.

In truth, however, the Democratic candidate for President openly espouses wealth redistribution. He brazenly asserts that the tax system isn't about government revenue but about "fairness." He looks middle-income Americans in their eye when he says that he plans to share their wealth.

Where is the conservative panoply? Have we forgotten Hayek and Friedman and Goldwater and Hazlitt and Bastiat and their arguments? Has the GOP moved so far into the compassionate conservative camp that it can no longer mount a reasonable defense of the free market and American principals?

Did we miss our rendezvous with destiny?