MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — I can see it now. In preparation for the 2012 primaries, or maybe in a heated battle for the leadership of the GOP, a motley bunch of Republicans sell themselves in a most familiar way.

Mr. Romney: And my view, we’re going to have to bring together the same coalition that Ronald Reagan put together.

Mr. Limbaugh: Reagan was exactly right. If you think that the era of Reagan is over simply because the external threat of communism in the Soviet Union was beat down, you missed the whole point. Reagan was talking about tyranny, liberty, freedom. It’s always threatened, it always has to be fought for. It has to be earned. What’s happened now is we’re not fighting the Soviet Union, we’re fighting the Democrat Party. We’re fighting the American left. We are now fighting to save our own country from itself. We are fighting within our own country to preserve our freedom. Reagan was exactly right. This is why the era of Reagan will never be over, because it is the era of our founding. It is the era of individual freedom, American exceptionalism.

Mrs. Palin: It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.

Mr. Romney: No, I’m Reagan!
Mrs. Palin: Reag—
Mr. Gingrich: I’m the Rea—
Mrs. Palin: —an! Dontchaknow?!
Mr. Limbaugh: LIBERALS LOVE THE DEVIL!

***

All the while, Jesus H. Reagan, hair and robe flowing, halo illuminating his leathered visage, walks the halls of 310 First St. NE, balancing budgets, promoting fiscal responsibility, and healing the sick. Lo! he has returned.

And then Mr. Steele: Ronald Reagan never lived in the past. Ronald Reagan was all about the future.* Great Communicator, no longer have we need for you, dear old man, for we can save this nation on our own. Without you we shall save the world.

*[By the way, can you even imagine a less conservative sentiment than this? — NPO]

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