No, I am not referring to another seat lost in a Republican stronghold, such as Mississippi’s first congressional district, nor am I referring to a Senator or Congressman defecting from the endless war that has become the staple of the Bush presidency. Rather, I was recently notified that the GOP has lost one more small-town American voter; a family friend of mine, once loyal and proud but now disenfranchised and dishonored. An older man in his late 70s, a loyal Goldwaterite, Reagan Revolutionary, and twice a voter for George W. Bush, he is, as Dan recently described it, a Republican “tired of war without end.” He now is looking to Bob Barr or Pastor Chuck Baldwin, but he could not mask his disappointment in the party he has been loyal to his entire life. “Where are the thinkers?” he asks.

It is stories like these that are giving me the impression that the Republicans are in even more trouble than they think. Peggy Noonan has written a couple of wonderful pieces (here and here) on the average American’s run-ins with the costs of Bushism in everyday life. There is tragedy in these small-town American stories, where folks, too busy with their families and their homes to worry about the nuances of public policy, loyal and patriotic, trying their best to fall in line and “support the troops” in times of war, are losing faith not just in the GOP, but in America. In a time where it is clear that America, in its wielding of political and military power, is great, people are asking if it is good.

As the party in charge loses another small-town American, the answer seems clear.