"During downturns in sports, three rules of thumb are: Don't panic, stay within your game, play to your strengths. This being politics, the Republicans naturally are violating all three.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made headlines last weekend suggesting it's time for the party to get over its glory days: 'I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [GOP] messaging. I mean, it's great, but it doesn't draw people toward your cause.' Joyful Democratic bloggers put this more clearly in five tight words: GOP Needs to Forget Reagan."

Daniel Henninger examines the idea at The Wall Street Journal. 

It is almost poetic, albeit a tragic poem, that the era's heroes have died off without replacement.  Reagan was the first to go.  Buckley died and now Kemp has left us.  The GOP is in grave danger of falling victim to nostalgia.  The next leader of the movement will surely not be "Reaganesque," just as Reagan was not "Eisenhoweresque."

As Henninger note, the need for a movement is there:

"Republicans can start by taking the time to read the first Obama budget document, "A New Era of Responsibility." The word "investment" occurs over 140 times in its 142 pages. But this "investment" isn't private capital invested in private start-ups, what Mr. Kemp constantly called "entrepreneurial capitalism" and what most parents hope their children will join. Mr. Obama's document genuflects to "the market economy," then argues that it won't endure unless we "sacrifice" (through tax increases) to make "overdue investments" (which literally only means public spending) on four explicit goals: green energy, infrastructure, public health care, and education."

Update:  Reagan scholar, Steven Hayward, comments at NRO.