To me, that means that we must be ruthless in our search for virtue. This is not a time to paper over differences. This is the time when we have nothing to lose so we should come to a clear understanding of what it means to be a conservative. In one post I put it this way:
As we conservatives drag the remnants of our movement into the wilderness with no idea how we will emerge or whether we will ever emerge as an electoral force in America which is recognizable by my generation, we must inevitably engage ourselves in the most soul- searing inquiry of what went wrong. This will be an agony but equally it will be effective only to the degree that it hurts. It will not succeed without bloodshed. There must be finger-pointing and bloodletting. We must carve to the bone. The process must be Darwinian. Those whose ideas are false must be bayoneted on the trail and left behind.
The object is to find our soul - nothing less. In a come to Jesus sense we must get absolutely clear what it means to be a conservative. Only at this point do we look to the tent flaps and open them. Those who cannot subscribe to the hard-won consensus, to a confession of faith as to what is a conservative, should walk out through that flap. Those who are attracted from the outside to the core message of conservatism should be encouraged to walk through the flap and enlarge the tent. What the left wants us to do is to expand the census in the tent prematurely and thus turn a movement into a menagerie.
So the question to me becomes who can best perform as effectively as Rahm Emanuel did for the Democrats, but hopefully with more virtue? Does Fred Thompson, for example, with all his folksy charm have the grit to preside over the purges which must be gone through if we are to become Darwinian tough? Thinking about this, I wrote this post before the election:
We conservatives as early as immediately after the debate and certainly no later than after election eve will unavoidably come to grips with the desperate straits of the movement. The Republican Party at the end of this election cycle will be reduced to the citadel of the old Confederacy and a few Rocky Mountain states.
We will be virtually leaderless, President Bush has already been discredited in the public mind and John McCain will have been cast aside as an eccentric loser who is past his prime. Virtually the only national voice of any elected official which the party will be able to muster will be Sarah Palin and her qualities are not yet honed and perfected to the degree necessary to function independently as the popular leader of a great American party. She has the natural gifts which could make her a legendary politician in the years to come. I hope she spends the long Alaska winters working on and polishing her public persona so that she never again will be exposed as she was by Katie Couric. She has the purity of spirit and she has the courage. With a little bit of forensic training and a leavening of gravitas, Sarah Palin might emerge as a great Republican leader. The question is, will she also emerge as a great conservative leader?
That leaves Mitt Romney, Governor Huckabee, Mayor Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Newt Gingrich. Of this group, Duncan Hunter is thoroughly sound but he does not have the charisma necessary to play the role of national party leader. Fred Thompson is also sound enough doctrinally but he is aging and he failed to show the vigor necessary in his halfhearted run for the nomination. [Nevertheless, his folksy charm sugarcoats some bitter medicine making him a wonderful spokesman for the party.]
Next in order of orthodoxy- accepting the candidates recent formulations of their own positions-comes Mit Romney. If one accepts his conversion on a few issues, especially abortion, he is doctrinally sound enough. Romney's problem, candidly, is his religion. He is a Mormon and there were enough bigots in the evangelical branch of the party to deny him the nomination. But the times like Republicans' fortunes have drastically changed and he might just be the man for this season, especially in view of his wonderful business biography during these times of financial stress. Romney would make an unmatched organizer and financier for the party. I think his interests lie more in running as a candidate than as a mechanic of party machinery. Nevertheless, he might be able to place in power some people with drive and business experience who can put the Republican house back in order after the neglect of the latter Bush years and the chaos of the McCain campaign. Romney will be running for the nomination the day after the election.
After Romney in order of conservative orthodoxy comes Mike Huckabee. He troubles many Republicans and conservatives because of his populist streak. Many conservatives find him unreliable on spending. However he is possessed of a very winning personality and would make a wonderful spokesman if placed in the right role for the party. I see Huckabee as a front man and a spokesman but not a knuckle cracking boss.
Mayor Giuliani is disqualified by virtue of his doctrinal unorthodoxy and his personal biography from any elected national position with one exception: he would make an excellent chairman of the Republican National Committee. He can make a hell of a speech and he can debate. He's a tiger and God knows we will need a tiger fighting for the party. We will need especially someone who can get press attention and hold the public's attention. More, we need someone who can kick ass and take names There's only one other figure who can match Giuliani in this regard.
And that figure is Newt Gingrich. However, he too has disqualified himself by virtue of his personal biography and he cannot get support of the rank and file for elected office. But he is a font of ideas at a time when the Republican Party is fresh out of any new ideas. We desperately need his intellectual energy. Do not forget that of all of the potential leaders of the party mentioned so far only one has demonstrated the capacity to organize a guerrilla against entrenched Democrat majorities and lead the party to victory and into majority status. Do not fail to remember that he did that in the teeth of resistance from the Rockefeller wing of the party. Gingrich can make a speech and he can marshal arguments and he can skewer Democrats without raising a sweat. Gingrich could also head the national party but I think there would be ill considered but widespread resistance to any move he might make in that direction. We must not be foolish and fail to somehow take advantage of Gingrich's political genius.
So we will be leaderless for a time while we get this sorted out but we need not be rudderless for long because we have several men who can take the tiller in steady hand and guide the ship out of these shoals and into blue waters. There will be finger-pointing and acrimony but that is necessary and good. We must rediscover our soul and that cannot be done without bloodletting.
I caution my fellow conservatives not to substitute a search for the person for a search for bedrock conservatism. We do not need a messiah, we need a John the Baptist. Beware ever the cult of personality, not just when he is a potential tyrant on the left, but when he is a conservative who offers the balm of easy answers and differences papered over.
