Dr Drock: Anyone who was alive from 2001-2007 with working eyes and/or ears knows there's nothing conservative about the republican party. That was the most liberal government in US history at the time.
Brutus: 1) of course one 6 year period does not define a 200 year old party and 2) the country was liberal in those years, not the party. THe biggest entitlement by far was the prescription drug bill. THe Democrats wanted even more spending than Republicans. Actually the parties are opposites. The Republican Party was formed in 1794 by Jefferson to stand for freedom or liberty from government. Modern Republicans are still identical to the extent they can get away with it given that they must compromise with Democrats, Independents, voters, and the media to win elections, govern, and get reelected.
Libertarians are uncompromising on the same principles and so never hold office and have never accomplished a single thing. There is a dead stupid streak among them which holds that if they can paint Republicans and Democrats the same, the world will turn to them for a real alternative. Its a strategy that never got them more than 1% of the vote, and that mostly from junkies and gun nuts, but they stick to it like lemmings or automatons posting Mises and Hayek spam day in and day out even after 100 years of abject failure .
You can be sure if there were enough voters, media, and independents who would support the Jeffersonian freedom agenda there would be no end to Republicans who would show up to represent them if only for fame and the $200k salary!! In sum, the parties seem to overlap only because the people overlap, not because ideas overlap.