Quin Hillyer argues that limiting big government isn’t just a good principle for Republicans, but historically has been good politics for them as well. He proves his point through the brilliant argumentative strategy of (a) defining “big government” only to encompass things that conservatives dislike (no critique of the partial-birth abortion ban here!), (b) excluding all counter-examples, like the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections where George W. Bush was specifically running on big government conservatism, as outliers, and (c) making believe that Republican losses which clearly stemmed from other factors are really a result of having too loose a grip on the purse-strings. Republicans didn’t lose in 1998 because they looked like crazed maniacs pursuing a broadly unpopular impeachment investigation which was the biggest political news story in a decade. No, the problem was they relaxed spending constraints in order to keep moderate GOP representatives on board! I only missed the scoop because I’m tainted by beltway-insiderism.