It’s the biggest condundrum of conservatism; there are so many of us.

Some are social conservatives, motivated by the decay of our culture.  Others are fiscal hawks, alarmed by the Administration’s mortgaging of our great-grandchildrens’ futures. There are security conservatives motivated by the war, libertarian conservatives driven by conservatism’s fundamentally hands-off approach, and not a few Republicans, whose loyalty is to the Party first and foremost, and of course every possible permutation of these options and probably not a few others.

I described my own philosophy a few years ago: “I view politics as a tug of war. A series of tugs-of-war, really – one for each issue that’s out there, at any level, from National Security to Welfare to Cheese Price Supports. At the center of each debate is a mud pit; a ribbon in the exact center of each rope shows how well each team is doing.  My role in that tug of war is to affect that compromise by pulling to the right like there’s no tomorrow. So I pull like mad, and the ribbon over the mud thus inches a little closer to the right. Others, of course, pull against me, trying to edge the ribbon to the left. I know there’ll be a compromise; I know that the harder I pull to the right, the more people will (if I’m doing my job) be convinced to pull with me, and the farther to the right that ribbon – the “final” results of the compromise – will be.”

Now, the conventional wisdom is that the ideological differences between Republicans – all the different flavors of conservative and not-so-conservative Republicans – is going to eventually destroy the party.  My traditional response: if people fight the tug of war for all they’re worth up through the endorsement of candidates, but then get behind the winners – even the ones that aren’t perfect – come election time, we’re good.  That is, of course, historically difficult, but you have to start somewhere.

The other possible solution – one I never really thought about all that hard until the unprecedented Tea Party movement; simply accept the myriad other differences, and unite behind the issues that really matter.

And as Jonathan Martin notes, that may be starting to happen:

It may not be all that hard in a favorable political environment for skilled Republicans to bridge or blur the ideological divide between the conservative activists who dominate the party and the more moderate swing voters whom candidates need to win office.

Scott Brown has become the toast of Republicans nationally by winning Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts even though he supports abortion rights. Conversely, Republican Bob McDonnell defied predictions that he was too far to the right to attract moderate voters to win a landslide in the Virginia governor’s race.

Let’s add that two of the few bright spots in 2006 and 2008 for Minnesota Republicans – Michele Bachmann and Erik Paulsen – were both people who ran to the right of the conventional wisdom in both of their districts, the “Red with waxy Blue buildup” of the Sixth District, and the harder purple of the Third.

Much about recent events reflects basic politics: Smart politicians have always calibrated their ideological profile to fit local circumstances.

Ergo Mitt Romney.

But after conservative activists chased liberal Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of a special election in New York’s 23rd District last fall, some worried that activists were pushing the party so far to the right that it would be unable to compete nationally.

Earlier last year, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs crowed that Rush Limbaugh was the real leader of the Republican Party.

So far, though, it seems clear that Republicans who deviate from party orthodoxy or downplay social issues can be successful as long as they are not egregiously out of step with the base and are savvy enough to harness populist anger at Washington to their benefit.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.  And a candidate that is for cutting spending has a head start toward “good enough”.  Because remember – a candidate that might be softer on immigration or gay marriage than you want, but is right on taxes and spending, is more likely to take your side on the social issues than their Democrat opponent anyway.

Conservatives have been looking for something to re-unite the movement ever since Reagan left office.  This time, it’s not a person.

That shouldn’t be a problem.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 7:52 am and is filed under Conservatism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.