Mark Thompson argues that before the Republican Party can provide good governance it must shed a leg from the the three legged stool. The legs are nationalistic conservatism, economic conservatism and social conservatism. Currently Thompson sees that the three strands do not have sufficient cross-sections that they can agree on what constitutes good governance.

Thompson notes that not being able to provide good governance is different to being able to win elections. The Bush Administration was very competent and successful at winning elections. It was woeful at governance. Thomson writes:

Where I think Frum and Douthat, and to a lesser extent Postrel, go wrong is in the assumption that "salvageable" means "capable of winning elections."

The old coalition will remain capable of winning elections, if only because of the inertia of our two-party system. Where it is unsalvageable, however, is in its ability to govern well on a federal level once it is in power unless and until it can chop off one of those legs and replace it with a leg that is currently compatible with the other two.

If a leg must go I hope it is the social conservatives. It is the arm of conservatism I find the most repugnant. Thompson thinks that the Republican Party will be in the wilderness for a considerable time:

[R]ealignments don't happen overnight, and until this one is complete - which will take a good decade or so, I suspect - I don't see movement conservatism being in a position where it is capable of governing competently beyond existing as a possible legislative check against Democratic overreach.

Prior to the Republican party gaining a majority in the House in the early 1990s the Democrats dominated the legislative for nearly forty years. The current back and forth between the two parties in the House and Senate is a very recent thing. The modern history of the legislative in the US has been one of slow oscillations with long periods of party dominance.

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