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Talking Barack

The Cunning Realist, one of our go-to guys for smart, non-ideological economic analysis—check out his TAC stuff under the pseudonym “Wilson Burman”—is the latest conservative to endorse Obama. If we followed the lead of our friendly competition and began purging heretics, our stable would be a lonely place. (Supporting McCain is actually the deviant move […]

The Cunning Realist, one of our go-to guys for smart, non-ideological economic analysis—check out his TAC stuff under the pseudonym “Wilson Burman”—is the latest conservative to endorse Obama. If we followed the lead of our friendly competition and began purging heretics, our stable would be a lonely place. (Supporting McCain is actually the deviant move in these parts.)

CR calls this a “risqué fling,” but true to form, he is a cautious convert, primed for buyer’s remorse. He’s too wily to be won by hope talk—expectations hung on empty promises are almost certain to be dashed. But therein he spies an opening for a regenerated conservatism:

[A] broad swath of this country has been turned off to conservatism and the Republican Party, perhaps permanently. If Obama wins and four years from now the economy hasn’t improved and his approval rating is at 30%, where will those people turn—politically, socially, and culturally?

I dispute his notion that Democratic one-party rule would “reverse and repudiate the current administration’s most disastrous policies.” More than half of the Democratic senators voted to invade Iraq, and Pelosi and Reid won’t be using their ironclad majority to defund No Child Left Behind or roll back the prescription drug entitlement. Expect them to pile on programs that a spread-the-wealth president will be all too eager to sign. After a couple of Supreme Court picks, a handful of humanitarian interventions, universal healthcare, and the first trillion-dollar deficit, we’ll talk.

In the meantime, far from being shows of disloyalty, these high-level defections are a manifestation of health. Those who continue to assume that conservatism is whatever the Republican Party decides on any given day have lost all hold on reality.

UPDATE: An astute commenter points out that I misinterpreted a key point. In the CR narrative, Republicans’ wilderness years will not reform them, and when the Obama administration fails to sprinkle the world in pixie dust as promised, the public may indeed swing back–to an unrepentant, “opportunist” Right. I apologize for my audacious hope. The night grows darker still.

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