Tuesday night’s CNBC/MSNBC Republican candidate debate showed those of us who still value limited government the extent of the GOP rebuilding process to date — a preview of what Republicans would stand for in a post-Bush world.

The top-tier candidates avoided the crass populism some of the second-tier candidates favor and defended free trade instead. It also seems that the candidates have at least learned something from the electoral trouncing last year since each of them ran screaming from the wreckage that is the GOP spending record of the past six years.

Yet each candidate seemed unwilling or unable to enunciate a coherent view of what the role of government should be in a free society. The support for free trade was saddled with an incongruous quest for an unachievable and nebulous “energy independence.” The promises to “control” health care costs were mostly uninfluenced by the notion that it was government meddling that caused the problems in the first place. Even a tepid endorsement of a private-account solution to the impending bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security was nowhere to be heard.

Some limited-government conservatives might have been slightly reassured by the look of the GOP future on Tuesday, but I’m sure many were left wanting, too.

[A version of this post originally appeared in a National Review Online symposium today.]