Alex Koppelman, at Salon, has it figured out:

Will doesn’t hold the sway he used to, because there aren’t many Republicans like him left. The blue-blood East Coast GOP’er — economically conservative, socially moderate — is all but extinct these days; there isn’t a single New England Republican in the House of Representatives anymore. You’re definitely not going to see, say, Sarah Palin quoting de Gaulle on Bismarck and the Franco-Prussian War, as Will did in this latest column. (And no, he didn’t use first names or titles for either de Gaulle or Bismarck — such things are for commoners.)
So the other side of the right, the one that’s come to dominate the Republican Party these days, isn’t likely to respond favorably to Will’s suggestion. . .