The arguments about cutting corporate taxes, spending billions on defense, and preemptive action have been conclusively settled by the headlines, and they have not settled in favor of the post-Vietnam conservatives.
The arguments about cutting corporate taxes are not over, primarily since the global economy has made it feasible for corporations to go where their expenses, taxes being one of them, are lowest. The Left wants to believe we can tax corporations freely, without any consequences, and this is simply not true. Whether anyone on the Right can articulate this well enough for people to "get it", it's hard to say. It seems far easier for ham-fisted populists on either side to blame "greed" while America's economy suffers and nothing is done.
It's also in the interest of every politician to cover his ass. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are dirty, and they deserve a great deal of blame for the bank failures. They're Democrats. Bush wanted to rein in Fannie and Freddie a few years ago; there sure wasn't a rubber stamp for this then. Believe me, I'm not saying anyone's innocent, just that whoever has had a hand in this is trying to cover that up.
WRT defense spending, that's an interesting thing. At some point, someone will have to ask why NATO means "The US is your Army!" It's true, we can't keep spending our billions on defense, so that others don't have to.
OTOH, I find Obama's opposition to missile defense puzzling, at best. I've always wondered about this peculiarity of the American Left. Why NOT neutralize the threat we've lived under for so many decades?
Preemptive action? Hell, the whole "War on Terror" has been managed in ways I dislike. I don't think that this talking point buzzword, as used by either side, begins to sum up the problems with it.
Bottom line?
I don't think that any of this is going away. Every few years, someone says, "The argument is over, and we've won!" Bullshit.
As long as politicians can find something people are afraid of and claim they'll fix it, it will come up again. Terrorism, health care, whatever the fear du jour is. You name it. Someone will use it to try to get elected. No one will actually have a good solution, but hell, people are gullible.
Politicians are a lot like college students who never grew up. They can easily find everything wrong with the world, but they have no solutions. But they can talk about the problems for years on end.