The Republican presidential sweepstakes -- volatile? No American Thinker readers need be told that. But Alex Roarty adds historical perspective at today's National Journal. Roarty had been writing that the 2012 GOP presidential contest might be the most unpredictable since 1964. That year, Barry Goldwater emerged as the GOP standard-bearer over Nelson Rockefeller. Now Roarty opines that the 2012 scramble for the GOP presidential nod may not only eclipse 1964, but may best GOP contests as far back as 1930. Why is this? For a reason that Roarty doesn't address. The political plate tectonics are shifting under the GOP in ways that they haven't since 1964. The Goldwater ascendancy marked the beginning of modern popular conservatism as a tangible electoral expression. That expression's high-water mark was Reagan's presidency, which ended nearly a generation ago. Grassroots conservatives and tea party activists aren't pushing to reinvent Reagan's conservatism, but to align its electoral expression closer to the principles that Reagan advocated. Ronald Reagan's adherence was first and foremost to founding principles, and....
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