It looks obvious

This sound like a good advise, maybe because I argued the same here before…

But instead of trying to find another Reagan, Republicans might be better advised to find a conservative icon of an earlier vintage: Barry Goldwater.

Goldwater, of course, may be a puzzling model for conservatives looking to retain the presidency in 2008. The Arizona senator was walloped at the hands of President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The senator known as "Mr. Conservative" lost all but six states and garnered only 39 percent of the popular vote.

But students of history know just how important the Goldwater candidacy was for the future of American conservatism. The loss of Goldwater laid the intellectual groundwork for the notions of small government, less taxation and muscular foreign policy that begat the Reagan landslides in 1980 and 1984, as well as the Republican Revolution in 1994, which ended 40 years of mostly Democratic rule in Congress.  

And the GOP doesn’t need to look far to find a new Goldwater, They already have one already among the candidates.