Greatly Exaggerated

Is Conservatism finished? Before reading the piece, but my answer was that the Republicans were not defeated for being too conservative, but for not following conservative principles in governing.

Indeed that seems to be the point of the essay, but it also rebuts the criticisms by some "conservatives" that Republicans had abandoned Reaganism. "In short," writes author Wilfred M. McClay,

it is still unclear that the achievement of a majority of congressional members with the letter “D” after their names means a shift in the ideological balance of the nation. The internal Democratic fissures that opened up immediately after the election—as in the struggle between Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer over leadership of the House, and the patent discomfiture within the party over certain likely appointments to key committee chairmanships—suggest that electoral victory has not automatically conferred a durable majority, let alone a governing vision.. . .

[T]he 2006 election results may even turn out to be a blessing in disguise for Republicans in particular and conservatives in general. This is how democracies are supposed to operate. Moreover, the ability of conservatives to engage in self-criticism is surely a salutary thing—so long as the self-criticism is both honest and accurate.

Another point one might add is that in order to win control of the House, Rahm Emmanuel recruited a number of "Blue Dogs," conservative democrats in districts where liberals clearly couldn't be elected. This suggests that Bush might have a working majority on some issues.