1980. Not.

I often (somewhat) jokingly ask my Republican friends it they realize it's not 1980. In an effort to get back to their Gipper-roots, they often seem to be parroting his anti-tax, anti-government message as if the challenges we face today are the same (they're not) or as if the last 20 years of history had not occurred. David Ignatius points out today's Republicans are missing a more fundamental key to Reagan's success:

The Republican leadership, with its gloom and doom talk about the budget, is falling into a trap that its modern patron saint, Ronald Reagan, would have dodged. Reagan succeeded by contrasting his optimistic vision about America with the malaise and intellectual exhaustion of the Jimmy Carter era...Now, the Republicans have taken over as the "tut-tut" party, and they are unwittingly embracing the narrative of America as a nation in decline. That's never a good bet.

Ronald Reagan had a message that was pitch perfect for his time. But this is not 1980. And singing the same tired refrain is going to get the GOP tuned out.