David Boaz chimes in at Cato Unbound:

Republicans used to accuse Democrats of setting up a nanny state,
one that would regulate every nook and cranny of our lives. They took
control of Congress in 1994 by declaring that Democrats had given us
“government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the
public’s money.” After 10 years in power, however, the Republicans have
seen the Democrats’ intrusiveness and raised them.

So from
the Republicans we get federal money for churches; and congressional
investigations into textbook pricing, the college football bowl system,
the firing of Terrell Owens, video games, the television rating system,
you name it; and huge new fines for indecency on television; and
crackdowns on medical marijuana and steroids and ephedra; and federal
intervention in the sad case of Terri Schiavo; and the No Child Left
Behind Act; and federal subsidies for marriage; and (for less favored
constituencies) a constitutional amendment to override the marriage
laws of the 50 states.

That’s a pretty good summing up of the change we’ve seen between 1994 and 2006 (or, really, 1994 and 1998).

Boaz then takes solace in a host of numbers (emphasis added):

The good news is that lots of Americans don’t like big spending and
nanny statism. In the most recent poll that asked the question, 64
percent of voters said that they prefer smaller government with fewer
services and lower taxes, while only 22 percent would rather see a more
active government with more services and higher taxes. Sure, people may
give this answer to a theoretical question and rather different answers
to questions about specific kinds of spending—but then, those polls
never attach the tax bill to the spending proposal.

Ronald
Reagan won two landslide elections on a limited-government platform.
Bush has twice squeaked through with his big-government conservatism.

Gallup
polls have consistently found that 20 percent of Americans are neither
liberal nor conservative but libertarian, opposing the use of
government either to "promote traditional values" or to "do too many
things that should be left to individuals and businesses." That’s only
slightly below the percentages for liberals and conservatives. (Some
want government to do it all, and some don’t offer classifiable
responses.)

According to the 2004 exit poll, 17 million people
voted for John Kerry but did not think the government should do more to
solve the country’s problems. And 28 million Bush voters support either
gay marriage or civil unions. That’s 45 million who don’t fit the
red-blue model. They seem to have broadly libertarian attitudes.

The problem with many of these factoids, of course (as Boaz acknowledges), is that they don’t represent the reality of how issues are actually presented to voters.

Let’s put this simply: Voters are dumb.

They want lots of services and low taxes. They want cheap socks, but they want Wal-Mart to pay its employees a "living wage." They want to eat lots of ice cream but never get fat.

Right now, Republicans are offering them exactly what they want: more services and less taxes. Is it sustainable? Of course not. But that won’t be George W.’s problem when it all comes crashing down.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan comments here.