Whither conservatism?

Take that word in the broad rather than narrow sense.  Jim Kalb writes:

As time went on the movement followed the usual shift in emphasis from quality to quantity: from the traditionalist, libertarian and anti-totalitarian ideas that got it started to the forces that gave it the means to exercise power: politic and well-connected neoconservatives, spokesmen and operatives who could influence and mobilize masses of religious and populist voters, and those simply interested in power as such.  GWB’s big government borderless “conservatism” brought that process to a conclusion: no conservative principle at all, just power, political management, and scraps of liberal and conservative ideology made up into banners.  At this point, with the failure of the Bush administration, the whole thing seems to have come to an end.  It seems that those who want to resist the reign of quantity and the managerial state, and work toward a better way of life, need to start again from basics.  We are back in 1945.

There is much truth to this.  As to the future, Brad Thompson offers an Objectivist viewpoint.  Here is my take on reviving classical liberalism.