Anyway, so this all brings me to Ramesh’s response to Sullivan’s post about our debate.

The always rational Ramesh starts out by breaking things down to the core:

What all of us are grappling with is the expansion of the federal government under President Bush. How should those of us who want a much smaller federal government respond when Bush, for example, imposes steel tariffs? We should denounce the tariffs and bash Bush for imposing them. On this much, I take it, all three of us agree.

Yes.

Then, Ramesh continues:

But Sullivan and Sager write as though the problem were simply that Bush is for big government — as though the problem would go away if Bush would simply commit himself to shrinking the government. I think that’s a simplistic analysis. I think Bush is responding to real political circumstances. The most important of these circumstances is the smallness and weakness of the constituency for limited government…The task of a political movement trying to shrink the government over the long run is to change those political circumstances, to expand the anti-statist constituency.

Mostly right, except that I know I’ve never argued — nor do I think has Sullivan — that there’s a ready-to-rock, slash-and-burn constituency out there just waiting for us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have all that much to write about, and I’d have to go join the circus (it looks so fun on Carnivale).

All I’m arguing is that A) the current Republican Party is now about big-government conservatism, and B) traditionally small-government conservatives don’t seem to have much of a plan to change that.

Now, I don’t have a 10-point plan either. But I think a lot of people are disturbed, and that’s why this issue is getting so much attention.

Anyway, so I’m happy to hear Ramesh’s plan. Basically, it boils down to reforming Social Security. My thoughts are mixed on this, and I’ll have a column in The Post this Sunday that touches on that.

But what happens if we don’t get Social Security reform? I don’t want to be defeatist, but this may be the best chance in a decade for reform, and it could very well not work out. I’m not sure, whatever their merits, that we can rest the future of limited-government conservatism on private Social Security accounts.

I do ultimately agree with Ramesh, however, that whatever the problems with Bush, Kerry wasn’t the answer. And, so, such are coalition politics in a two-party system. But there’s a wide-open field now for 2008.

Anyone have any good candidates? Really… anyone?