Daniel Larison on why Romney doesn’t have to be a real conservative to get conservatives to fall in line behind him:

George W. Bush was probably the least conservative President in the substance of his policies since Nixon, but a combination of partisan tribal loyalty, post-9/11 solidarity, and traditional deference to presidential leadership kept most conservatives’ complaints to a minimum or prevented them from being voiced at all. Bush drove through significant expansion of the federal role in education, he pushed through the largest expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s, and he actively defied the party base on immigration during both terms. There were some criticisms and objections to this, but apart from some honorable exceptions there was remarkably little resistance and even less alienation prior to the 2006 midterms. After 2006, conservatives began abandoning the sinking ship, but the immigration debate in 2007 was the only time that Bush faced a large-scale revolt.

I think it was the Harriet Miers debacle in 2005 that was the first sign of conservative revolt, but then, that may have simply been the pundit class in revolt. I can’t be sure about that. Anyway, I am certain that nothing the next Republican president does will cause his base to fall away significantly.

Actual conversation I had with a Republican friend last year, as we were talking about Bush’s memoir.

“But he really was a disaster, and there wasn’t much conservative about the way he governed. Look at the prescription drug benefit. Look at spending, for crying out loud. Bush spent more than any president since LBJ, and he put it all on a credit card. It wasn’t only the war. And the incompetence and cronyism! Since when was that something conservatives approve of? And what about No Child Left Behind? And immigration. Remember how he promised us the Federal Marriage Amendment, then whiffed? And –“. On like this for a couple of minutes, a litany of Bush’s (and the GOP’s) failures.

The response? The entire response?

“Well, he did his best. And he was a lot better than that mess we have in the White House now.”

End of conversation. The proposition George W. Bush was a good president, and a conservative one was non-falsifiable. All his failures were either the fault of fate, the MSM, or the Democrats. Talk about your faith-based politics, talk about your soft bigotry of low expectations, sheesh…