He said that 20% of conservatives voted for Obama as a protest vote against McCain not being a true conservative.  Therefore Obama has a conservative mandate and as long as Obama governs as a true conservative he will have no problem with him.

- "Armey points to No Child Left Behind and the Medicare drug benefit, two laws that were much criticized by the left and the right for different reasons..."
Armey is wrong here in that the GOP actually picked up seats in the next coupla election cycles after NCLB and Medicare Part D (although it didn't take effect until later) passed.  but TChris doesn't give enough (any?) credit that at least the appearance of (even if you don't believe it was actual) bipartisanship helped bush and the GOP.

- "Perkins and Armey both talk about small government and limited government, by which they mean a government that does nothing ... unless it's doing something bad, like banning gay marriage...."
this can't necessarily be blamed on the mean old GOP as some of the recent bans were ballot initiatives decided by the voters.  sure, conservatives supported them, but that's not necessarily a 'mean old GOP' thing.

- TChris nails it closing with
"[Voters] want government to be effective. They want government to work, to solve the problems that government is capable of solving."
as the failed Katrina response, the 2004-2007 ineptitude in Iraq policy, and GOP corruption (Foley coverup/Abramoff...) have all damaged/crippled Bush and the GOP

So while you think he's been governing from far on the right, most conservatives see him as a fairly middle of the road guy, especially on domestic policy (No child left behind, the huge prescription drug bill, etc).

The GOP has been walking away from conservative ideas ever since Clinton outstared Gingrich on the government shutdown.  What you are hearing now is the same thing perceptive listeners heard after Nixon: the party needs to reinvigorate itself and return to conservative roots.

I think Mr. Thomas pretty well sums up the massive change underway in the Republican Party as the true Libertarians part from the Religious Right. The majority that Karl Rove built was simply unsustainable. You cannot simultaneously support limited government and a government that seeks to destroy individual liberty by imposing a highly personal moral code when the majority does not share that same moral code.

I guess I must be a Libertarian-Democrat because I very much resent any level of government spending my tax money to punish gays, oppose freedom of choice, oppose religious freedom, deny women equality, incarcerate the addicted, teach creationism, oppose stem cell research, support prayer in school, etc.  The turning point was the Terry Schiavo affair in which the Religious Right imposed a federalized moral solution that did not recognize the individual rights of Mr. Schiavo that had been confirmed by the state courts.