The debates in this election cycle have also encouraged the turn away from compassionate conservatism. Led by Gingrich, the candidates have played to audiences hungry for red meat. These party faithful lustily cheer attacks and boasts, and they boo any statement that carries a whiff of moderation.

The Republican presidential candidates competing for the affections of Florida voters have plenty of labels with which to tar each other: Influence peddler. Failed politician. Cayman Islands account holder. Aspiring polygamist.

But perhaps the worst smear they could lob at an opponent would be to call him a “compassionate conservative.”

There’s no place for compassion in this race, which has featured debate audiences cheering the death penalty and booing the Golden Rule. Candidates have jostled to take the hardest line in opposing government-funded programs to help the poor, with Newt Gingrich calling Barack Obama a “food stamp president” and Rick Perry blasting “this big-government binge (that) began under the administration of George W. Bush.”

Just three years after Bush left the White House, compassionate conservatives are an endangered species. In the new Tea Party era, they’ve all but disappeared from Congress, and their philosophy is reviled within the GOP as big-government conservatism.

Is this just a case of the Republican Party wanting to distance itself from the Bush years — or is compassionate conservatism gone for good?

Bush was not the first person to use the phrase “compassionate conservative,” but his adoption of the label in the 2000 campaign made it instantly famous. Bush and his advisers sought to soften the GOP’s image, which had taken a beating during the years of Gingrich’s speakership and the Clinton impeachment. Bush’s faith-based initiative was the signature policy to grow out of his compassionate conservative philosophy.

In 2008, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also ran for the GOP nomination as a compassionate conservative, refusing to apologize for supporting state tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants: “You don’t punish a child because a parent committed a crime.” Huckabee was fond of saying that he was a conservative, just not angry about it.

Like the Ecuadorian horned tree frog, a handful of compassionate conservatives can still be found, if you know where to look. Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., who was involved with faith-based initiatives before Bush ever heard about them, is one. And former Bush aide Michael Gerson continues to preach the gospel from his perch as a Washington Post columnist.

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