Christie Todd Whitman, interesting:

Along comes Ronald Reagan and the Reagan presidency. How important ideologically as a shift, as another place in the Republican arc, was the Reagan candidacy and presidency?

Reagan was very important. He was the kind of nationally acceptable face of conservatism. He was also very smart. He was someone who, while he was a strong supporter of the anti-abortion groups, he never went and talked to them personally when they were in Washington for their big rally. He kept a distance. He talked to people; he was inclusive. He said it. He said, “You don’t get to be a majority party if you’re always looking for groups with whom you won’t associate.”

He understood it. And he was able to reach out to people and make them feel OK. Even though they may not have agreed with him on every issue, they at least felt that he would respect them, he would listen to their opinion, and they felt comfortable with him. The nickname “the Great Communicator” meant something, and he really understood what it meant, and he understood how to do it.

And if you look at the policy he drove, there are some who will say on the far left, on the Democrat side, it was a radical shift to the right. It really wasn’t. And it was more reflective of where the country was. And he was able to bring people together.

… How important was the pursuit of the vital center, the pursuit of the Reagan Democrat?

Clearly it was very important to his election. But the thing about it that differentiates it from what we’re seeing at the hard edges, those who I call social fundamentalists now, is they were more centrist. And while it was still further off to the right than we’d been in the past, it wasn’t as extreme as what we see today. And Ronald Reagan was very — I mean, he’s the one who said the 11th commandment, “Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican.” That’s totally gone by the boards.

And it’s interesting, because while he was important to the conservative cause because of the legitimacy he gave to conservative representation and governance, it has been interpreted by some of those who want to develop very narrow litmus tests for what makes a good Republican as this is just the cover for us to really do what we want to do, [and] that Ronald Reagan would have approved. I don’t think he would have for an instant [approved of] what’s going on today.

And we’ve had another quantum shift. But there’s been a gradual movement of the country to the right, let’s say. There’s nothing wrong with conservativism; I mean, I’m conservative on a lot of issues. But we have seen this movement toward the more hard edge on the social issues. And I think Ronald Reagan would have been very uncomfortable with much of what he would see today.

Help me understand what the shift is about. How did it happen? When did it start? When did you first notice that the Republican Party was moving toward the hard edges, as you say?

Well, it’s been really with the last couple of election cycles, because Ronald Reagan, one of the things he did do was to reach out to dissident Democrats. He was building a base. What I see happening now, and we’ve seen over the last maybe eight years, starting in his second term when he was no longer going to be the nominee, this idea that instead of building your base once you’re in office, you harden that base.