MUCH analysis of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton focused on Mr Trump’s boorishness. Mrs Clinton accused him of having called a beauty queen “Miss Piggy”. Mr Trump explained the next day that the lady in question had “gained a massive amount of weight”. No one in the audience, which included 85m Americans and many others around the world, was reminded of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

The evening did underline, however, vast differences of substance between the two candidates. On policy, Mrs Clinton is solidly within the mainstream of the Democratic Party and not much different from her predecessor. Mr Trump represents something completely new for the Republican Party, as a comparison of his performance on September 26th with the arguments made by Mitt Romney in the debates four years ago makes clear.

In 2012 the Republican nominee chided Barack Obama for his naive attempts to reset relations with Russia, suggesting that Mr Obama had been conned by an ex-KGB spy. In 2016 the Republican nominee praises Vladimir Putin, even as Russian planes rain death on Syria, and reckons that the FBI is mistaken when it suggests that Russian hackers targeted the Democratic National Committee’s computers. In 2012 the Republican nominee was a strong supporter of trade with Mexico and Canada, and hoped to pursue more free-trade deals. In 2016 the Republican nominee calls NAFTA “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere”, and chides unpatriotic American firms for moving jobs to Mexico. Mr Romney fretted about the national debt; Mr Trump would send it soaring.

Four years ago, Mr Romney was thought to have made a costly mistake when he dismissed the 47% of Americans who pay no federal income tax as moochers. Mr Trump boasted about his skill in reducing his tax bill (“That makes me smart”). After Mr Romney lost the election in 2012, some Republican strategists concluded that he had seemed too much like a CEO. In the first debate, Mr Trump gave a class on his company’s finances (“I’m extremely under-leveraged”), on its terrific assets and why he sometimes didn’t pay contractors (see article).

Until this year, a conservative record on questions of faith and personal morality was a prerequisite for winning the Republican nomination. During the 2012 primaries there was speculation about whether Mr Romney’s quiet Mormon faith would put off such values voters. In 2016 this has all been erased. When Mr Trump divorced the first of his three wives, Ivana, he let the New York tabloids know that one reason for the separation was that her breast implants felt all wrong.

Wanted: any good ideas

Just over a month from the election is a good time to wonder why the Republican Party has a nominee who has abandoned so many conservative ideas and trampled over conservative values. One charitable interpretation is that everything can be explained by Mr Trump’s fame and charisma, which enable him to tap into a deep vein of voter vitriol against established politicians and give him permission to do and say things that other candidates cannot. Another is that, for some Republicans, hatred of Mrs Clinton has become more important than any idea or principle. Most simply, this election has laid bare the party’s intellectual exhaustion. Conservative leaders have spent years draping a tired tax-cutting agenda in populist slogans. Now a true populist has taken charge, and party grandees can only hope he does not mean all that he says. It is a stunning shift. And it matters. Presidential elections, unlike beauty contests, have consequences.