So now we have a brand new Republican nominee. To be sure, it is not the candidate that most conservatives wanted, nor is it the candidates that most liberals despised. However, perhaps John McCain can surprise us all and maybe even get a few of our votes in November, though speaking for myself, the odds are against him. I think we are likely to see the Republican party become, if not completely diminished, at least somewhat chastened after this November, which is why I can say without exaggeration that I am terrified at the prospect of 2012.
Some might find such a virulent reaction to be a bit premature - it is, after all, four years away. However, those four years are only so much nail-biting when one knows precisely who is likely to run - and there are clearly at least two candidates who would be very well advised to return to the national stage. What terrifies me about 2012, then, is what sort of battle it is likely to become.
As has often been noted, Mr. Huckabee is conspicuously the candidate of the social conservatives, almost to the exclusion of everybody else. Furthermore, Mitt Romney is almost as conspicuously the candidate of the economic conservatives. This particular appear to two segments of the same movement ought not to be problematic, but unfortunately it becomes so when the level of animosity between those two segments is so high. One would be hard pressed to find two groups with a more strained relationship, especially considering the fact that, after years of keeping silent about their economic sentiments, the social conservatives have finally outed themselves as populists. The business conservatives, by contrast, are notable insofar as they are largely libertarian - both on social and economic grounds.
If one takes these two positions and places them on the political compass, one finds that they hold (literally) nothing in common. The populists wish to use the Government to make everything fair to the poor, and to inscribe forever upon the Constitution the words "what would Jesus do?" The libertarians, on the other hand, completely reject the notion that the Government can make anything "fair" to anybody and don't particularly care what Jesus would do, because he's a private individual, and it's no business of the State what he does. It would be difficult to find two positions more contradictory than this. Not even conservatives and liberals fit the bill - they at least agree that there is such a thing as the "national interest" or the "common good." Libertarians and Populists do no such thing. For libertarians, there is only the "individual interest" and for populists, individuals are all sinners who need to be chastened so that the meek can inherit the earth.
Of course, I know which side I'm on, but all the same, I fear for the future of the conservative movement even if my side wins. One of the things which conservatism has historically prided itself on is balancing the concerns of all its interested parties in such a way as to provide some level of philosophical coherence and also some common ground. If, in the conflict between libertarians and populists, one side inevitably has to win (and it does), then this entire notion of fusion will be almost completely destroyed and one more group will be frozen into the periphery of conservatism in much the same way that the paleoconservatives have been. Fortunately, I think the danger of this freeze existing permanently is slightly lower if the populists lose, since they are still an influential voting bloc, but there will still be that awkward interim space in which the Religious Right begins to see itself as on the outs of the Republican party, and in that time, they could easily fall prey to the depredations of another Carter. Considering the increased preoccupation of evangelical leaders with "social justice" and other Leftist-inspired blather, this scenario seems especially likely and troubling.
But that situation is unlikely to occur for a simple reason - the Religious Right would almost certainly not lose a fight against the libertarians. With no disrespected intended to my right wing libertarian comrades-in-arms, Jesus is a more influential prophet than Ayn Rand, and nets more votes besides. Worse yet, the Religious Right could have an edge going into 2012 because there are rumors circulating (especially on Newsmax) that Huckabee is at the top of McCain's potential VP list. There are silver linings, of course - the Rush Limbaugh audience (which is fiercely conservative fiscally as well as socially) would almost certainly go for Bob Barr en masse if Huckabee was chosen - but even then, the Republican party would have effectively thrown the conservative movement out after 20 years, choosing to go for pure compassion instead of "compassionate conservatism." It would be the alliance between neoconservatives and the Religious Right which both groups have so desperately wanted - the old Roosevelt coalition rebuilt, with the REAL conservatives predictably frozen out.
Of course, there is another alternative - namely, that McCain and Huckabee will go down to defeat at the hands of Obama as Ford and Rockefeller did at the hands of Carter, clearing the way for the triumphant return of Romney. However, this seems unlikely at the point where Huckabee is nowhere near as unpopular with the conservative movement as Rockefeller. Indeed, it is more likely that Huckabee would assume the role of conservative savior if Obama were elected and led this country (as he inevitably will) into the toilet.
So in the event of this, what do we do? It would be the height of silliness to suggest that we should simply return to being "superfluous men" as per Albert Jay Nock - rather, conservatism must put its theoretical house in order again. It is time to reexamine our principles and rediscover our oldest roots. It is even possible that, if conservatives can rally enough intellectual coherence and (more importantly) enough patience to get along with one another, we can hammer together a stronger fusionist coalition before the debacle of 2012 even arrives. However, one thing we cannot afford to do is simply rest on our laurels. This is the agony of our movement, and unless we can put forward the case for why the principles of Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville and the Founding Fathers are still relevant to today's society, we will become the "beautiful losers" which Sam Francis described. Contrary to the advice of David Frum and Michael Gerson, this does not mean changing our principles, or compromising. It means actually trying to apply those principles to contemporary problems, rather than simply fabricating them as creations of liberals, and then resorting to ad hominem attacks. Over 40 years ago, Barry Goldwater said "let's grow up, conservatives." Now, 40 years later, it seems the more appropriate injunction is "let's not get senile, conservatives."
