Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Romney v. McCain - The Morning After

I can bring very little emotion to this decision.

I have settled a few things in my mind:

1) Romney would be a much better president than John McCain.

2) John McCain is a much more attractive candidate than Mitt Romney.

3) A McCain win will be interpreted as a repudiation of the case for immigration restriction - if the Senate's most outspoken exponent of open borders can survive a Republican presidential primary, nobody else has anything to be afraid of either.

4) The race has turned into a weird upside-down counter reality. The "conservative" is losing to the "moderate" - except the so-called "conservative" (Romney) is really a moderate at heart (notice his election night praise for George HW Bush), while the so-called moderate has one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate.

5) Ultimately, any vote is going to yield a desperately unsatisfactory result for conservatives. If McCain wins the nomination, conservatives will have to suffer the humiliation of rejection by their own party. If Romney wins, conservatives will suffer the catastrophe of a Democratic landslide victory.

6) The real lesson I take from this race is that conservatism needs a big rethink if it is to survive into the next century as a viable political force. But of course, I would say that, wouldn't I?

02/06 06:32 AM