GOP Convention - I didn't

GOP Convention - I didn't make it this year - haven't had time to really be involved in party stuff. But I'd say it was a good one.

The media coverage seems obsessed with the notion that the party can be either conservative or big-tent - as if conservative principles aren't the ones that draw people to the party in the first place.

Bear in mind that by conservative principles, I'm talking about the ones that matter to everyone - economic liberty, lower taxes, safer streets and a more secure world. Abortion is a terrible thing, and I have problems with domestic partner benefits (more later) and oppose both on pure principle - but neither of these are the issues that bring people conservatism.

Ronald Reagan didn't win two landslides elections because he was pro-life. He won them because he made the big, galloping ideas of Hayek and Mill and Madison - ideas about freedom and economic liberty - live and breathe for millions of regular Joe and Jane Lunchpails around the country.

Pawlenty, as I've noted in this space before, is a great stump speaker - the best by far among the current gubernatorial candidates. But years in the moderate-to-liberal legislature have tarnished his conservative credentials. If Brian Sullivan drove him farther to the right - ie, made him an actual Republican rather than a slightly less media-friendly DFLer - then the convention was a very good thing.