the beginning of the destruction of mental health and other services, putting the White House and its minions above the law, Oliver North illegally selling arms and all the rest of it ("I had no idea what my administration was doing!" was Reagan's brilliant defense which succeeded in keeping him out of it legally), trickle down economics (AKA "Voodoo economics", in the worlds of Bush Senior)--

--I 'd say the current crop of extremist conservatives understood exactly what Reagan was about, and are just carrying on his work. The current administration just brought it to a new high art form, but don't forget some of them were in Reagan's cabinet.

This one's easy. Same crew, same ideas. It's just taken until now for some of you to understand what a total and despicable shell game it was, but it was right from the start.

Same crew, same ideas still applies equally to the left wing of the Democratic party -- which is still pushing for the higher taxes, greater wealth redistribution and additional socialized programs that led it to become moribund in the 1970s. This is what led to the Reagan landslide (and it was large one) in 1980.

Americans, even the Americans of the future of changed demographics described in the discussion, get tired of the constant doom and gloom of the left wing message. "Your children will have less than you do; we're destroying the environment; we need additional laws restricting this, barring that and banning the other -- it is downbeat. It hasn't played well with people who merely want to work, own their own home and have a little fun -- and it never will.

The Republicans may be wrong. The correct way forward may be as some sort of welfare state in which no one can become truly successful, but no one can truly fail, either. The Republicans certainly don't always practice what they preach -- but what they preach sounds better to a lot of people. "We want to let you alone, keep your taxes low and let you achieve your own level of success," is a much more saleable message than, "We're going to raise your taxes to pay for nationalized health care; we're going to restrict the size, shape and emissions of the car you drive; we're going to place additional taxes on the fast food that's making you fat" message that comes from the left. In politics, the message can be every bit as important as the pursuit of that message.

The Democrats are about to have a major victory based on the anti-war sentiment abounding in the nation. They should be cautious about their message, or they'll face a dramatic poltical reversal -- like the one that happened after the Clinton health care fiasco, a debacle so large that it returned the Republicans to true majority in both houses, after Congress had been controlled by Democrats for more than 40 years.

I was in California when Ronnie was Gov. I knew he had no political ethics, and was not fiscally competent. The GOP won the majority from Clinton by using the Chicken Little Attack "the sky is falling" well they won and sure as hell the sky is now falling.

The Devalued dollar taxes us all. The lost of security due to poor diplomacy and military mismanagement contribute to the flight from the dollar. People vote with their wallets, I hope they see who skinned them now.

Actually, the GOP took over from the Democrat's in the Congress not because "the sky was falling" but because the Clinton administration over-reached itself in a number of areas. First there was the health care debacle; then Waco (Waco played very badly in the "red states"); then "don't ask, don't tell" (also a bad one in the red states); and a host of other pecadillos both political and personal (the FBI records, the travel office) even before Monica.

The sky wasn't falling, there was just a feeling that the brakes needed to be applied. Now the pendulum has gone the opposite direction and we'll see if the brakes are applied or if the response is excessive.