HAVING spent the better part of three months attacking Mike Huckabee and John McCain as crypto-liberals who would destroy the Reagan coalition, the pundits, talk-radio stars and professional activists who make up the establishment of the conservative movement had to grit their teeth this week as their preferred candidate, Mitt Romney, bowed to the inevitable and abandoned the field. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. McCain are now the last men standing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Worse than watching the two heretics celebrate in the right-wing temple, perhaps, was that many of the conservative movement’s own constituents had put them there. Despite Rush Limbaugh’s insistence that nominating Mr. Huckabee or Mr. McCain would “destroy the Republican Party,” on Tuesday more than half of self-described conservatives voted for one of the two men over Mr. Romney, the candidate endorsed by Mr. Limbaugh.
After being denounced as a tax-and-spender and a pro-life liberal, Mr. Huckabee won four primaries in four Republican strongholds, including Alabama and Georgia. Mr. McCain split the frequent-churchgoer vote with Mr. Romney, and eclipsed him among evangelical Christians, even though the religious-conservative poobah James Dobson has promised to sit out the November election if Mr. McCain becomes the Republican nominee.
The failure of conservative voters to fall in line behind Mr. Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, among others, reflects a deeper problem for the movement’s leadership. With their inflexibility, grudge-holding and eagerness to evict heretics rather than seek converts, too many of conservatism’s leaders sound like the custodians of a dwindling religious denomination or a politically correct English department at a fading liberal-arts college.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10douthat.html?em&ex=1202792400&en=42d4325a2984041f&ei=5087%0A
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