But would-be inheritors of the Reaganite mantle should at least sympathize with their goal to restore broad-based upward mobility and close-to-full employment.
American conservatives have seized on this reversal of fortune: Arthur Laffer, a Reaganite economist, hails the Texan model over the Gipper's now hopelessly leftish home.
Being the only Reaganite left in the Treasury Department, apparently I was the only one who knew how negatively Bush's concession would be perceived by the Republican rank and file.
Mr Podhoretz parted ideological company with them as he gradually metamorphosed from a left-winger into a cold-war warrior and Reaganite fellow-traveller, and he cannot now forgive them for failing to follow where he led.