“As soon as I’m done speaking, I’ll tell you what the criticism on the left will be,” Rubio said. ” ‘He didn’t offer any new ideas.’ Well, we don’t need a new idea. There is an idea. The idea is called America. And it still works.’

The crowd went wild, as Reagan and Goldwater and Helms and Buckley looked on.

One serious problem for the party is that there is no living embodiment of the our-values-live-on message. There’s no beloved former president who can stand before the crowd and remind them of the greatness of their cause. Reagan is gone, and George H.W. Bush, respected but not loved like his predecessor, is fading from the scene. The natural candidate for the job, of course, would be George W. Bush, but that’s just not possible. While conservatives respect Bush for the job he did protecting the country from terrorist attack after Sept. 11, in many ways they are still struggling to climb out of the hole he dug for them.

Those Democratic events where a beloved Bill Clinton wows the crowd? That can’t happen for Republicans. Not until the new leader steps out of the pack.