Bush 41’s biggest mistake was breaking his word on taxes and planting the seeds for the recession that led to the primary challenge by Pat Buchanan, the independent candidacy of H. Ross Perot and the election of Bill Clinton as the 42nd president.

“W’s” old man, though, didn’t do lasting damage to conservatism. He had so little invested in the ideology, and the ideologues in him. It was easy for the right to galvanize against him and part ways. Despite his loss in 1992, the GOP actually picked up seats in the House.

This President Bush, though, has played with fire. Since the brilliant conservative theoretician Frank Meyer devised “fusionism” in the 1950s — which brought together the social right, the foreign policy right and the economic right under a philosophy opposed to oppressive government that later evolved into a political movement — a conservative one based on “Freedom.” This culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and all sides understood their end of the bargain.

No side could tempt itself with the siren song of national government power as a means of placating their people or suckling for money. They had to slug out their problems at the state level and forge ahead in the time honored “do it yourself” tradition of America.

The Republicans of late, however, decided to trade in the “less government, more freedom” model that had worked so well for Reagan and conservatives. They deliberately and quite consciously made the social right and the economic right dependent upon Washington.

From the beginning, they tempted the social right with a seat at the table in forming policy, “faith-based initiatives,” federal interference in the Terry Schiavo case in Florida and a ludicrous amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. After eight years of being told by Rove and this White House that all the social ills of America could be federalized, it will take a long time to put this toothpaste back in the tube.

In 1978, state Sen. John Briggs offered Proposition 6 in California. The “Briggs Amendment” would have prohibited gays from teaching in public schools. Though the Christian right supported it, Reagan campaigned against it, seeing it as a violation of personal freedoms. Voters there sent it down in flames and Briggs blamed Reagan’s opposition for its defeat.

The economic right is in as bad a shape. Bush and Co. never understood what tax cuts meant to Reagan and conservatives. In essence, Reagan's position was, “OK, I’m going to cut your taxes, but I am also going to cut spending. Don’t look to Washington to fix your problems or for a bailout. Look to yourself.” Reagan and the conservatives believed giving individuals more of their money meant more opportunity to pursue dreams of entrepreneurship, more self-reliance and more self-worth, certainly ennobling to the human spirit.

Rove, Bush and the modern Republicans have treated Americans like crack addicts, giving them tax cuts but also federal boodle, so tax cuts look more like an appeal to downright greed.

When Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Act, limiting the personal freedoms of Americans' involvement in politics, Rove was asked in confidence about the constitutionality of the legislation. According to his questioner, Rove was singularly unconcerned and said he was only concerned about the favorable editorials Bush would get for signing the bill and that he, Rove, could live with the decilne in personal contributions to the 2004 Bush campaign.

Starting with No Child Left Behind and wending its way through eight years of Rove-inspired initiatives, Reagan’s organizing philosophy of “freedom” has been replaced by Bush’s “security.”

Bush has also put conservatives in an impossible position by trying to explain deregulation versus the out-and-out corruption of the financial industry and bailout of their friends on Wall Street and nationalize the mortgage and banking industries. For the record, Reaganites oppose the bailout and federal involvement in anything other than throwing crooked brokers and bankers into jail block C.

Wehner said this election is not a referendum on conservatism, but he is only partially right. Millions of Americans have come to erroneously see Bush as a conservative when nothing could be further from the truth. This election will more accurately be a referendum on Bush’s “Big Government Republicanism,” and not Reagan conservatism, not our conservatism.

Trouble is, few will know it, and we conservatives have our work cut out for us.

Tony Fabrizio is the president of Fabrizio-McLaughlin & Associates, a conservative polling firm. Craig Shirley is the president of Shirley and Banister Public Affairs, a leading marketing firm of conservative thought. He is also the author of two books on Ronald Reagan. Both have worked in conservative politics for more than 30 years.