Republican Tinkerbell 
The thoughtful press peepers at Media Matters For America [just typing it gives a tingle!] have detected a pattern in Republican affairs:Â free-floating New Reagan naming, often not tied to any visible speaking skill or charisma.
Christie On A Stick! 
They run down the usual names named, your Palins, Rubios and the like, but several of the reborn seem to have escaped their view.
Lest we forget, some have imagined the mantel falling on Rubio’s leathery opponent, Charlie Crist. Before his auditioning to become the Robert Byrd of the desert wastelands, John McCain was considered amoung the Reagan Undead. Until he stumbled into a cracker history morass Virginia Governor Robert F. “Bob” McDonnell was seen, at least in Pat Robertson’s alternative universe, as Reaganesque. And South Korean hard man President Lee Myung-bak was Reagan walking until it was discovered voters didn’t thrill to the prospect of confrontation with the North.
But our favorite New Reagan of Today lives in South Africa:
 step forward President Zuma!
Shape Up, Punks! 
Michael Reagan is taking a break from identyfying New Reagans in order to diss the post-catastropy Republican field.
” We are attaching ourselves to certain individuals, and as a result we have become a party of people and not a party of principles. We are Romney-ites, or Huckabee or Giuliani devotees, or McCain-ites, or supporters of Gov. Sarah Palin – when we need to be just plain Republicans…In the Balkans, warfare between factions was the status quo. As Republicans, if we continue to Balkanize and fail to unite, then fighting one another will be our party’s status quo.”
Stirring words from a man who upon his death compared Gerald Ford with Saddam Hussein.
Name In Vain 
Hope Arkansas’s Second Son Mike Huckabee graced the stage at the Republican convention’s Wednesday session, offering up democrat and god fearin’.
Sadly the Arkansas Augustus has been caught out making up a Lincoln quote, the gist of which is to make Old Abe an enemy of big government. It’s been attributed to much of the Founders pantheon, but it’s really just a Gerry Ford line from the 70s.
The whitest Republican convention in forty years remains eager to drop Lincoln’s name, the latest being both Cindi and John McCain Thursday night.
 You’d think she might shy away from the word Lincoln.
“I would love to see a President Huckabee 
…because if our president were named ‘Huckabee,”
how bad could anything really seem?… It’d be as if
the entire country was animated by Hanna Barbera.”
– Stephen Colbert
From the Associated Press comes word that Colbert’s vision is already being realised in Huckabee’s [and Clinton’s] hometown of Hope Arkansas, with a lake named for Huckabee. 
Negative Barometer 
Just in time for yet another gathering at the Reagan Library, the Los Angeles Times reports that incessant Reagan name checks have a negative correlation with Republican primary success. At least for Rudy Giuliani.
