November 18, 2007 8:08PM # Where Have All the Republicans Gone? By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE [In Sunday’s “Opus” cartoon](http://www.salon.com/comics/opus/2007/11/18/opus/), Berkeley Breathed suggests that Opus, becoming middle-aged, will naturally find himself sliding straight into the welcoming arms of the Republican party. The general idea of middle-aged conservatism is understandable enough. There’s an old saying, attributed to many different authors, that “if you’re not a socialist at 20, you have no heart. If you’re still a socialist at 40, you have no brain.” But Breathed reveals his own advancing age when he depicts the Republican organizers wooing Opus with the promise of “Balanced budgets — and smaller government! And no nation building! We’re not the world’s policemen!” When’s the last time Republicans offered such a platform? Oh, right, [George W. Bush in 2000](http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000a.html). But seven years is a lifetime in politics. Today’s Republican party offers massive deficits, a government virtually unlimited in size and scope, and a Wilsonian-neocon foreign policy that is both policeman and nursemaid to the world. I wonder if even a middle-aged penguin would sign up for that. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).