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Good article. Ihsve one bone to pick, though, regarding William Buckley and his view that “Our guiding principle has always been to select the most conservative viable candidate...The wisest choice would be the one who would win... the most right, viable candidate who could win.”

We’ve elected all sorts of conservatives over the last 8 years. And for the most part what we’e gotten in return is cowardice, collusion, collaboration and capitulation. Collectively these “conservatives” haven’t delivered worth a damn. In my view it’s not the election of the most conservative candidate that matters so much as what they’re willing and able to do once elected. And in that case it isn’t necessarily the most conservative candidate that will deliver the best results.

I think a great example of this can be seen in the current presidential race. I’ve never argued that Donald Trump is the most conservative candidate running because he isn’t. Instead, I would argue that he is the candidate who is the most likely to implement a bigger part of the conservative agenda. Ted Cruz may be 95% conservative, but if he can only implement 5% of a conservative agenda, then that’s a relative loss compared to a 60% conservative Donald Trump who overachieves and gets 60% of a conservative agenda implemented. I’ll take a 60% win over a 5% win any day of the week.

Great analogy. We elected our finest, filling Congress with historical margins.
In return, we got-

2009 Obama version 1.0
2010 Obama version 1.1
2011 Obama version 1.2
2012 Obama version 1.3
2013 Obama version 1.4
2014 Obama version 1.5
2015 Obama version 1.6
2016 Obama version 1.7

We've elected all sorts of conservatives over the last 8 years. And for the most part what we've gotten in return is cowardice, collusion, collaboration and capitulation. Collectively these "conservatives" haven't delivered worth a damn. In my view it's not the election of the most conservative candidate that matters so much as what they're willing and able to do once elected. And in that case it isn't necessarily the most conservative candidate that will deliver the best results.

Exactly so. One has to ask, what is their value? The more intellectually pure, the more impotent.

I must agree. In business and in life, ideas without excellent execution just waste everyone's time.

One thing that differs sharply from the time Buckley set out that theory -- almost 50 years ago -- is the burgeoning and ubiquity of the media, particularly the 24/7 news cycle that demands sensationalism, and failing to get enough, creates it. Trump is actually a better candidate because in addition to his other skills as a developer of complex projects, he is already tempered by, and hardened to, the media game.