Back to Work: On Romney, Palin, and the Huck

The ’80s vids were a nice distraction as we prepare for the final push here at C4M.  But if we can travel back to the future of 2008 in our phone booth (or DeLorean or whatever), I think y’all may find this story by Erickson of Red State a bit eye-opening.  If true, the speculation that many in Romney’s camp have declared open season on Palin before the election is even over would be at once saddening and maddening.

Frankly, I’ve never seen an election cycle during which friendly fire was so prevalent on the Right.  Conservatives have a great deal to work on in the coming years, win or lose on November 4, but priority number one must be a change in the tone of our debate. (Why, I’ve even see an astounding amount of bickering on the pages of The Corner at NRO!)

Folks, debate is one thing, but the acrimony fostered by the 24/7 blogosphere has to be kept in check at all costs.  Otherwise, I can hardly imagine a new conservative consensus forming around any future presidential nominee.  Conservatives in recent years have been fortunate enough that the GOP has crowned its frontrunners long before any votes were cast in the primaries.  This has allowed a spirited exchange of ideas across a broad ideological spectrum (from Center-Right to Right to Way Right, you might say)–but it never got personal.

My friends, John McCain was not my first pick to run for president while carrying the Republican banner.  Nor was he my second choice.  In fact, he was maybe third–and I suspect he was third for most of us, which could explain why he ultimately prevailed.  But Steven and I here at C4M knew the stakes in this election were high and put our support behind the GOP nominee once the race was all but settled.  Period.

Much of the friendly fire, it must be said, was triggered and sustained by the supporters of Romney and Huckabee.  The third elephant in the room whenever these camps met was religion–the same elephant which has presumably driven some Beltway “conservatives” away from soft-spoken Protestant McCain into the arms of a black liberal theologian’s apprentice, Barack Obama.  That Sarah Palin’s strong religious and social conservative presence triggered this exodus cannot be seriously doubted.

Notice a pattern here?  The same divide opening between Palin and Romney existed already between Huckabee and Romney.  Is Romney to blame, then, since he is the constant in this equation?  No, because Huck and Palin aren’t necessarily variables–and you could likely trace their popularity to roughly the same set of GOP voters, including most prominently the Evangelicals.

Will the populist-leaning, middle class, family-values voters who enthusiastically back Palin and Huck ever get back together with their cousins-by-marriage, the fiscal and foreign policy hawks who kept their fingers crossed for Romney?  They united in the past, and I’d put money on it happening again, if only to battle the Leftist coalitions who work together to undermine what each of the two conservative camps cherish the most.

On the part of the Palin-Huckabee Evangelicals, the time is now to drop religious faith as a litmus test for a political candidate who can otherwise speak the social conservative lingo.  Whether Romney was hurt more for his past embrace of liberal social policies or his affiliation with the Mormon church, which is a suspect institution for conservative Protestants, I’m not sure we’ll ever know for sure.  (We do know that it was some combination of these factors.)

I offer the above criticism of social conservatives as an individual who was extremely skeptical of Romney because of his record (which, together with his overly-stiff delivery, made it difficult to know whether he was genuine).  But despite my misgivings with the Mormon faith at a personal level, I do not judge Romney on this basis as a presidential candidate.  The way you cast your own ballot is your own business, but I hope you’ll take these words to heart.

Oh, and social conservatives, consider dropping the class warfare populism that has been so enticing this election cycle, because reality does not support the conclusion that corporate “greed” has caused America any harm. (Political “greed” is another matter, of course–thank you, Fannie and Freddie!) Americans may not trust Wall Street right now, but arguably it’s because no Republican has stood up for businesses (which in turn hire folks from Main Street).

On to the fiscal and foreign policy hawks, the “Washington to Wall Street Axis” as Huckabee (and everyone else running for office this year) so neatly put it.  No, you are not greedy, and I for one firmly believe the current era of populism will yield to a renewed spirit of Reaganism in due time.  Only a socialist could find joy in the current state of things.

Are you not a little condescending, though?  And doesn’t your disdain for social conservatives show through at times when your liberal well-to-do neighbors in Beltway-land scoff at the “silly” Christians for believing the human race was created and not evolved, leaving you somewhat embarassed by the more outspoken wing of the Republican coalition?  Yes, I know that “under God” and the Ten Commandments and even Roe v. Wade–among a host of other highly controversial social topics–are bothersome to you.  But your socially conservative counterparts are all you’ve got at the end of the day.  Even if they do like to rock out in jeans to “Redneck Woman.”

There’s a tangible, readily-identifiable conservative ethic–a river that runs through the heart of social and fiscal conservatives alike, and which can never run dry.  Its optimism is tempered by the harsh realities of life; it is proud, even boastful, of America’s past success and its resistance to both the moral and economic evils which have befallen so many other nations–even the more “civilized” ones across the pond. (Chief among these evils being communism, which united conservatives behind a common cause like no other enemy before or since.)

This river of conservatism is stubbornly self-reliant; it is good-humored (though it has seen better days); and, perhaps most important of all, it is now and will always be the great stabilizing factor in a democratic society, which is naturally prone to excess in all directions.

Even if the Leftist crowd manages next week to hoist its great Idol upon the altar of federal government, high atop a hill (of sorts) in Washington, D.C., the Right will have an opportunity to reconvene at this river.

Shall we gather at the river?  The beautiful, beautiful river?

UPDATE: Perhaps the big wigs at this high conservative counsel meeting can resolve the rancor discussed above?

SECOND UPDATE: Speaking of “Redneck Woman,” this Hot Air post and some of the reader comments on the same page illustrate exactly what I mean by the Palin/Huckabee vs. Romney divide.

Tags: GOP primaries revisited, Huckamania, is Reaganism dead?, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Palinsanity, Romney supporters critical of Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin, shall we gather at the river?, social and fiscal conservatives at odds, tension in the McCain camp, the conservative ethic, the GOP coalition fracturing in 2008