Doug Mataconis responds to Noah’s recent post and continues the discussion about a post-2012 conservative backlash:

The thing about that is that I don’t think the conservative base would be all that eager for another George W. Bush either, even if it meant winning the White House. Between the increased political activism by conservatives that came with the rise of the Tea Party, and the false sense of history that this community has developed by sheltering itself inside the talk radio/Fox News bubble, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a 2016 nomination fight that starts years earlier and ends up being much more contentious, with the result being a candidate so far to the right that the GOP ends up losing its third Presidential election in a row in 2016. Maybe by then, they’ll be willing to listen to the people that have been warning them all along.

Mataconis could be right, but let’s remember what happened in 1999-2000. There was no established next-in-line candidate. Pat Buchanan had been the runner-up in the 1996 contest, but there was strong opposition to him within the GOP, so he ended up leaving the party. He later sought the Reform Party nomination. There was some talk of a campaign for Kemp, Dole’s running mate, but that went nowhere, and the short-lived Dan Quayle bid ran into a wall when he couldn’t raise enough money. Bush was presented to the party as the default favorite, and at first he positioned himself as the “compassionate” conservative with the moderate “reform” record (a “reformer with results” was what Bush called himself, if you’ll recall). Conservatives were not pleased with the way Bush’s campaign started, and a handful of challengers tried to prevent a Bush coronation, but in the end McCain, Bush’s most competitive opponent, was attacking him from the left, which predictably and depressingly resulted in a conservative rallying to Bush in South Carolina. From that point on, Bush’s record as a relative moderate and the beginnings of his big-government conservative agenda were ignored or rationalized, and soon enough Bush became the nominee many conservatives accepted and even started to like.

The larger context for the conservative rallying to Bush was the deep desire to end the Clinton era, which Gore’s election would have continued. If there was one thing that united conservatives of every stripe, it was loathing of Clinton, and anyone who offered them the chance of defeating Gore was good enough for people on the right. As it turned out, Bush’s election was a disaster for the U.S. and for conservatism, but in 2000 very few on the right were worried about this. If Romney loses this year, a second Obama term is going to make Republicans even more eager to find a candidate capable of “winning back” the White House, which Republicans have become accustomed to controlling for most years since 1952.

Of course, it is possible that the contentious nomination battle Mataconis describes could happen in the next cycle, but I think he underestimates the desire to control the executive branch. The longer Republicans are deprived of the Presidency, the more accommodating of more moderate nominees they tend to become. If enough Republicans conclude that a candidate more conservative than Romney cannot win in 2016, the GOP will choose yet another relative moderate in the hopes of preventing Democratic victory. Imagine the state of mind of most Republicans after seven years of Obama in the White House, and then ask whether they are going to want to gamble on a more “purist” candidate*.

When Mataconis says that Republicans might be willing to “listen to the people that have been warning them all along,” this is much too vague. What is it about the “candidate so far to the right” that is going to vindicate the warnings to which Mataconis refers? In what way would this candidate be “so far to the right”? Is Mataconis referring to social conservative views and culture war politics, fiscal responsibility and austerity economics, or more aggressive militarism (which is arguably not “far to the right” at all)? Is it something else entirely? If Republicans are going to heed these warnings, they need to be as specific as possible.

* I’m talking here about what I think most Republicans will prefer in the next election, not what they should prefer.