Letter From America (Predicting the Election)

Sticking The Neck Out

At least one pundit is predicting a Republican landslide next week.  We shall see.

Opinion: Here comes the landslide 
By Dick Morris – 10/30/12  
The Hill

Voters have figured out that President Obama has no message, no agenda and not even much of an explanation for what he has done over the past four years. His campaign is based entirely on persuading people that Mitt Romney is a uniquely bad man, entirely dedicated to the rich, ignorant of the problems of the average person. As long as he could run his negative ads, the campaign at least kept voters away from the Romney bandwagon. But once we all met Mitt Romney for three 90-minute debates, we got to know him — and to like him. He was not the monster Obama depicted, but a reasonable person for whom we could vote.

 As we stripped away Obama’s yearlong campaign of vilification, all the president offered us was more servings of negative ads — ads we had already dismissed as not credible. He kept doing the same thing even as it stopped working.

The result was that the presidential race reached a tipping point. Reasonable voters saw that the voice of hope and optimism and positivism was Romney while the president was only a nitpicking, quarrelsome, negative figure. The contrast does not work in Obama’s favor.

His erosion began shortly after the conventions when Indiana (10 votes) and North Carolina (15) moved to Romney (in addition to the 179 votes that states that McCain carried cast this year).  Then, in October, Obama lost the Southern swing states of Florida (29) and Virginia (13). He also lost Colorado (10), bringing his total to 255 votes.

And now, he faces the erosion of the northern swing states: Ohio (18), New Hampshire (4) and Iowa (6). Only in the union-anchored state of Nevada (9) does Obama still cling to a lead. 

In the next few days, the battle will move to Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (10) and Minnesota (16). Ahead in Pennsylvania, tied in Michigan and Wisconsin, and slightly behind in Minnesota, these new swing states look to be the battleground.  Or will the Romney momentum grow and wash into formerly safe Democratic territory in New Jersey and Oregon?

Once everyone discovers that the emperor has no clothes (or that Obama has no argument after the negative ads stopped working), the vote shift could be of historic proportions.

The impact on Senate races could be profound. Give the GOP easy pickups in Nebraska and North Dakota. Wisconsin has been a roller coaster. Once an easy win for Republican Tommy Thompson, then a likely loss as Democrat Tammy Baldwin caught up, and now Republican again, it will probably be a third pickup. Romney’s surge in Virginia is propelling George Allen to a good lead for the first time all campaign. In Montana, Republican Denny Rehberg holds and has held for some time a small lead over Democrat incumbent Jon Tester. And, in Pennsylvania, Smith has powered his campaign to a small lead over Democrat Bob Casey Jr.

The GOP now leads in these six takeaways. But it is also within easy striking distance in Ohio and Florida, where incumbents are under 50 percent and Republican challengers Connie Mack (Fla.) and Josh Mandel (Ohio) are only a few points behind. It may even be possible to entertain daydreams of Rhode Island (Barry Hinckley) and New Jersey (Joe Kyrillos) going Republican.

Republican losses? Look for a giveback in Maine and possibly in Indiana and Massachusetts. In Indiana, Republican Richard Mourdock had established a 5-point lead over Democrat Joe Donnelly. But his comments about rape knocked him back to a tie. With Romney carrying the state by 15 points, however, Mourdock could still make it. In Massachusetts, Brown has been in hand-to-hand combat with Elizabeth Warren. Down by five a few days ago, he’s now tied, but the undecided usually goes against the incumbent.
The most likely outcome? Eight GOP takeaways and two giveaways for a net gain of six. A 53-47 Senate, just like we have now, only opposite.

Barack Obama’s parting gift to the Democratic Party.

Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Clinton, is the author of Outrage, Fleeced, Catastrophe and 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan. To get all of his and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by e-mail or to order a signed copy of their latest book, Revolt!: How To Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs — A Patriot’s Guide, go to dickmorris.com.
 

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

But America Isn’t Jesus 

Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 23 October 2012

The most apropos tweet concerning the debate last night came from John Piper: “Obama: America, the only indispensable nation. Romney: America, the hope of the earth. This does focus our prayers for them.” I want to get to that in a moment, but first let me just affirm the consensus that appears to be developing.

Romney is clearly husbanding a lead, and Obama was trying to catch up. Romney was acting like an incumbent, and Obama was acting like a challenger. Romney was happy to wait out the round in a clinch, and Obama wanted (and needed) a knock out blow that he didn’t get.
Both campaigns clearly know the way things have settled out, and are playing in the same game. At the end of September, the RNC had an 18 to 1 cash advantage over the DNC. I believe that things are in a desperate way for Obama, and he now knows it. He avoided knowing it for so long because he lives inside the bubble that is the leftist media. The whole thing is an example of what Glenn Reynolds calls a “preference cascade,” and which I encourage you to follow up on here.

But, that said, back to Piper’s observation. Both Obama and Romney are clearly civic idolaters — with the one significant difference between them appearing to be that Romney really believes it. Obama is willing to mouth the civic pieties during a campaign, but his actual idols are elsewhere. And so how did we get to the place where Christians prefer the idolater who actually believes in Baal?

Of course, I don’t want to be hyper. If a candidate says that he believes that America is basically a good and decent nation, who would want him to be corrected by some over-scrupulous Christian? “My friend, no one is good but God alone.”

But what we are seeing in these avowals really is religious in nature. One sees how it all works of course, but there is only one problem. America isn’t Jesus.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Buttering the Stage 

Culture and Politics – Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, 04 October 2012

I TIVOed the debate last night, and then hopped my way through it, like it was an ankle deep muddy stream. I got enough to get a decent feel for it, without subjecting my sanctification to the blah blah parts.
So here are just a few random observations, which I would ask all to take cum grano salis.

First, it seems clear that this is one of those debates which will take on a life and meaning of its own, independent of the actual performance on stage. During the debate, I thought Romney was more confident, affable, informed, etc. but Obama seemed generally okay.
The talking heads afterwards — for about ten minutes — seemed to spin it in roughly the same way. (When talking heads spin, that would make them spinning heads, but that image might take us in another direction.)

But when the Twitterverse was factored in, along with the morning after analyses, from both left and right, the consensus appears to have coalesced around the conviction that Romney buttered the stage with Obama. And so, these events being what they are, that seems to have been what happened. But whether it happened or not, that is certainly what it now means.

Second, it struck me that Romney is not as vulnerable on Romneycare (and such things) in this general election as I thought he was going to be. Consistent attacks on his state-level statism are certainly possible from the right, but it is looking as though Obama can’t mount an attack there. To do that, he would have to understand the love of liberty that motivates such critiques, which he clearly does not. Romney can deflect such questions with appeals to “process,” “bi-partisanship” and “state-level” action, and Obama doesn’t have anything to say — because had he been in the Massachusetts legislature, he would have been a participant. There are plenty of rocks to throw, but they are all on the other side of Romney where Obama can’t get at them to pick them up.

This is related to the third thing. One of the things that may have thrown Obama is that Romney tacked to the center in the debate. Jonah Goldberg concluded his observations with this caution, the last sentence of which I would like to highlight:

“And yet, we should keep in mind that most of his effective moments came when he distanced himself from the base of his party and struck a decidedly moderate, centrist, position. Personally, given the stakes and the state of his campaign, that doesn’t bother me very much. But, once again, we can’t say we weren’t warned.”

Those Christians who are supporting Romney need to do so in such a way that takes this caution, chisels it in granite, and sets it up as an impromptu memento for themselves in the Washington Mall. Support for Romney can only be justified (to the extent it can be) if Romney feels betrayed by his base, his support, his mandate-creators, on the second day of his administration. But if his supporters feel betrayed by him nine months into it, then we have ourselves one more instance of Lucy and the football. In other words, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Son of Bork 

Culture and Politics – Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 04 September 2012

Yesterday I tweeted that Obama’s big challenge is this:

“The chief tactical challenge for Obama is this: arguing for a second term without looking like he is arguing for a second chance. #please”

My friend Frank Turk responded with a challenge.

“@douglaswils well, as someone on-record as not being willing to vote for Romney, you should admit O will get his 2nd chance. At everything.”

Since it is plain that I have not convinced everybody of the wisdom of what I am doing, perhaps another post is in order. Shoot, I haven’t convinced everybody of the sanity of what I am doing. So let me do it a little bit more.

Presidential elections are a chess game, not a series of discrete events. They are part of a story, and chapters follow. We are nowhere near the end of the book. There is lots of chess left.

Now I have no problem whatever granting that Romney, considered in isolation, is far, far better than Obama. Dubya was far, far better than Gore or Kerry. Herbert Walker was far better than whoever it was he ran against the first time. But is that the only comparison, the names on the ballot at a given point in time?
No, the story is bigger than that. I grant that Obama is terrible, and another round of him would be double terrible. But how did we ever wind up with Obama anyway? We got Obama because of the big government conservatism, the compassionate conservatism of Bush.

Clinton was gross and bad, and during his administration conservatives were fit to be tied. Now, having had a taste of Obama, conservatives are looking back at the Clinton years longingly. But remember how we felt at the time. So, how did we wind up with Clinton at the time? That happened because George the First raised taxes despite his “read my lips pledge.” In other words, squish conservatism opens the door to that which is far worse than itself. That is what squish conservatism does. That’s its job.

It does this in two ways. The first is by implementing the baby steps that will become the giant strides later on when open liberals get a hold of it. Thus it was that the TARP bill became the Stimulus. Who could support TARP and then, stopping on a dime, oppose the Stimulus? The second way is that ineffectual conservatism doesn’t work. It is inept. It crashes, and then everybody says that conservatism was tried and see, it didn’t work. But of course the reality is that it didn’t work because they were keeping most of their economic principles in a box in Milton Friedman’s basement. Republicans tend to implement just enough conservatism to discredit it, and not enough to actually turn things around.

So I grant that Obama is bad and that double Obama will be double bad. Got it. And I grant that Obama will be far worse than Romney if you placed them side by side and kept them there. But who is going to follow Romney? Will it be eight years of Romney, then eight years of Ryan, and then the millennium? Come on. Republicans will do what Republicans do, which is to say, they will screw it up somehow. They always seek to propitiate the gods of bipartisanship. But those gods never answer with fire, even if the Speaker of the House and the members of his caucus dance around the altar, cutting himself with knives.

The second thing is this: culture trumps politics, and religion drives culture. The Republicans have shown from time to time that they can win elections, and moreover, they can win them big. But as R. Emmett Tyrell argues in the recent American Spectator, Republicans are terrible when it comes to dealing with cultural issues and pressures. This is because a house without a foundation can’t handle storms, as somebody once taught.

The battle of our era is religious > cultural > political. Conservatives are absent on the first, inept on the second, and occasionally proficient in a technical way on the last. This means that when they win an election, they can immediately be put back on their heels by means of cultural pressures from the zeitgeistian left. They strive for a reputation of bipartisanship. They want to be above the fray. If there is a Republican sweep, the first Supreme Court appointment should be Son of Bork. You tell me — think that will happen?

Now I know I could be wrong about this, but I have to act on the basis of what I think is actually unfolding. I have previously acknowledged that if I lived in a state where the election could plausibly be close, my principles as stated here would be sorely tested. Why? Because I could be wrong. I know that.

That said, I am expecting this coming election in the fall to be an anti-Democratic bloodbath. I believe the Republicans will increase their majority in the House, take the Senate, increase their hold on the governorships, and take the White House. And insofar as that happens, I will be happy that Obama is gone. I will thank the Lord.

So what am I doing now? How can I be grateful for a Romney win, and yet not vote for him? I am preparing myself for the cultural engagement that I expect is coming, which means that I am not preparing for four more years of Obama. I am preparing myself for Republicans who will “replace” Obamacare with something not as obnoxious, but just as bad long-term. I am preparing myself for a Republican capitulation of some kind on homosexual marriage. It is the Nixon to China thing. If Republicans do it, it will be much harder to resist. I am preparing myself to fight the kinds of collectivism that Republicans advance — please note how the Republicans have successfully made Obama the enemy of Medicare, and themselves its true friend. I do admire how adroit that was politically . . . but the trouble is I don’t want to save Medicare for our grandchildren. Mark me down as uncooperative.

There are many other examples, but you get the drift. I am positioning myself for the next round in the fight for liberty, and I happen to believe that fight will occur within the Republican establishment. As I have explained before, I would be happy to vote for least imperfect candidate, within limits. I am no perfectionist. And if I were a perfectionist, the first candidate to be eliminated would be Ron Paul. He says a lot of good things, but he isn’t perfect. He says some terrible things too. I would vote for Ryan, despite the problems. I would vote for Paul, despite the problems. And so on.

Having decided that I can’t vote for “proud of Romneycare” Mitt, I still know where I am. If he is elected (as I expect he will be), I will support him when he does well, and I will oppose him when he doesn’t. I expect a good bit of the latter, and that is what I am preparing myself for. And that is what I see a lot of conservatives not preparing themselves for. They think I am not prepared enough for more Obama. I think they are not prepared enough for soft Republicanism. Oh well. Let us love and forgive each other.

Just one last quick point, and I am done. Politics is personal. If this were a simple matter of voting for option A or option B, the results to be implemented by adminobots, then I could easily vote for the least imperfect option. But personal loyalties work differently.

I have seen this unfolding in just the last few weeks. Conservative Christians who were a short time ago arguing that we should hold our noses and vote for Romney are now standing on chairs, waving hats over their heads, and whooping about what a great guy he is. This is how personal loyalties work. People follow men, not just abstract principles.

There are a host of issues connected with this, not least the dilution of gospel understanding in the church related to Romney’s Mormonism. If conservative Christians have done such a terrible job keeping generic Republicanism out of the church, what makes us think they will do well in keeping Mormonism out? That wall is still porous, and we are still clueless.

This last point requires further development, but I am done for the day.

The Californication of the US

It’s the Debt, Stupid

“a brothel of environmentalists, lawyers, public-sector unions and legislative bums.” Wall Street Journal

Sarah Palin congratulates Romney on Ryan

This from Sarah Palin on the announcement of Paul Ryan as Romney’s running mate:

Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate.

President Obama has declared that this election is about “two fundamentally different visions” for America. Goodness, he’s got that right. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama’s fundamentally flawed vision. We must now look to this new team, the Romney/Ryan ticket, to provide an alternate vision of an America that is fiscally responsible, strong, and prosperous–an America that understands and is proud of her exceptional place in the world and will respect those who fight to secure that exceptionalism, which includes keeping our promises to our veterans.

When I think about the direction our country is rapidly drifting in, I can’t help but look at California as a cautionary tale.

Inevitability

Political Psy-Ops

There has been a bit of back and forth over poll numbers in the US for the two respective presidential candidates.  Here is a perspective from Dick Morris:

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

No Mandate for Either One 

Culture and Politics – Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 06 August 2012

The presidential election, of course, has the capacity to be a disaster on wheels, either way it goes. But let me sketch a quick scenario in which it could be a good thing — either way.

One of my assumptions in this thought experiment is that in the gubernatorial races, in the Senate races, and in the House races, it is going to be a bloodbath for the Democrats. There are various good reasons for supposing this but, I hasten to add, we don’t know for sure. Sometime soon I will go into my reasons for thinking this likely, but for now my happy thought experiment scenario either way depends upon it.

If this happens, and Obama is re-elected, then it will not at all be like his first two years in office, when he had control of the Congress, and a mandate “to do something.”

Mormonism in Focus

Romney Presidency?

With Mitt Romney likely to become the next President of the United States more and more attention will be paid to his religion: Mormonism.  To secularists, it will be just another evidence of his sub-par intellect that he has a religious system of belief.  To fellow Mormons, it will seem to present a striking opportunity to advance Momonism into the mainstream of Christian belief–a long pursued goal.

Romney’s Moral Antennae

Bloodshed and Buggery 

Culture and Politics – Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Sunday, 22 April 2012

So Mitt Romney hired Richard Grenell as his foreign policy spokesman, and Grenell is an “out and proud” homosexual. Well, who could have seen that coming?

The issue is how these things get mainstreamed. There is a certain kind of conservative who, in Dabney’s immortal phrase, is the shadow that follows radicalism to perdition. It makes a gruff show with a respectable amount of growling, but in the end acquiesces to the last set of the left’s innovations, and runs on the hard right conservative platform of trying to make socialism work. It has no idea, Dabney said, of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom.

It is not just about elections.
It is about what happens if you succeed in your political objectives. If Clinton had tried No Child Left Behind or Medicare D, conservatives would have fought it. But since it came from Bush, they didn’t. Everybody remember when women in combat was (kind of) controversial? But once the move was made, it is now our ostensible conservatives who have taken the lead in paying tribute to “our brave men and women in uniform.”

Anybody seriously think there will be a conservative candidate who will set about “turning back the clock” on that one? He would be marginalized in about ten minutes as the equivalent of Fred Flintstone’s backward cousin, and establishment types would all sidle away from him with embarrassed looks on their faces.

There is a good chance that the Supremes will strike down Obamacare. But if they don’t, and the Republicans win the White House and both chambers of Congress, I don’t have the same degree of confidence that they will simply repeal Obamacare, root and branch. The chances are better than even that they will do what they always do, which is try to fix the dern thing.

Just imagine what will happen to a conservative who objects to the appointment of an openly homosexual cabinet minister three years from now. Obama couldn’t get conservatives to go along with that, but if you think that Romney couldn’t get them to, well, then, that’s what I call not paying attention.

(Just to keep this lively, I have absolutely no assurance that Ron Paul couldn’t do exactly the same thing. And if he did, we would all be just as hosed.)

So, as I have said before, I am not voting for Romney in the fall. But there are two things I need to say about this. The first is that this is not the same thing as “sitting this one out.” It is not the same as political apathy. I believe that we need an election in both the House and Senate that remminds respectable mainstreamers of a zombie apocalypse. We need (don’t know if we can get, but we need) a super tsunami of rowdy conservatives who are not about to deal with anybody.

If Obama is elected under those conditions, all he can look forward to is four years of gridlock, and I like me some Washington gridlock. This has to include a willingness to fight Obama Supreme Court nominees — not in a dirty fight, with our equivalent of “borking,” but rather because the Senate simply declines to confirm any commies to the bench. No need to dig up faux dirt — have you ever eaten a dog? ever thought about it? — just a cheerful refusal to confirm a commie.

And it turns out that this is exactly the same thing we will need if Romney is elected as well. If Romney is president, we will need him to have a Congress that will not even think about any legislation to the leftward side of Edward the Confessor.

The second thing is my response to those who say it is irresponsible for us not to vote for Romney. This is my reply in the form of a question, and it is a serious question. Since this is an issue of principle with me, and I know absolutely that the principle has to kick in somewhere, I would like everyone who thinks we all need to vote for Romney now to answer this question for me. In these matters, where is the line we may not cross? What set of convictions could a Republican adopt that would disqualify him?

Say he is radically pro-abort for the first two trimesters, and the Democratic ghoul is good with all three? Suppose the Democrat wants granny to go before the death panel at the age of 65, and our stalwart conservative thinks it should not happen until the age of 70. Now what? Where is the line, and how do we identify it?

I can vote for Republican presidential candidates, and I can decline to do so. I am an Independent, and not terribly hard to please. I am against bloodshed and buggery, which used to be a respectable position, although I recently heard from some folks at Indiana University that this is a position filled with seething hatred. At least I think that is what they were saying — their use of the f-bomb as an all-purpose adjective made it hard to make out their position, although I did get the general drift.

So I know there is a line, and I have a rough idea of where it is. As I have argued before, there is no nano-technology for political decisions like this. It is not a precise science. But when I go to draw that line, and I am told “no, no, no, not now, not this election, not this cycle,” I wonder what principle is being applied. It really needs to be more than that “we just have to win this election.” Because, of course, you can always say that.

Feeling the Pain, Part #2

That Bus Everybody Talks About

Culture and Politics – Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, 12 April 2012

I like Jonah Goldberg a lot, and David Bahnsen here has done us a favor by pointing to this over there. Jonah argues his case well, and the best thing about it is that he really understands the problem a number of us have with Romney.

In addition, I know I live in Idaho, and I know that my refusal to cast a vote Romneyward will not affect Idaho’s behavior in the Electoral College. I also know that if I lived in Florida I would have to sit down and ponder a bit longer.

David was very kind in his introduction to his disagreement with me and, like him, I have no desire to get into a fracas with any of those who understand the problems with Romney but who will be supporting him anyway.
In my mind, the principles are the thing we have to get straight, and the votes we cast are the tactics. This is not a conscience issue straight up — it is a matter of tactical choices informed by conscience.

In my mind, the best argument for supporting Romney is the SCOTUS appointments that will be coming up. That is not as clean as some might think, but it is a good argument. Roe v. Wade was upheld twenty-years after, and it was upheld by a court dominated by Republican appointees. But if Obamacare is struck down by the Supreme Court, as may well happen, that will be thanks to Republican appointments. So this is not a slam dunk argument, but it is a decent one. I have no problem with Christians in Florida thinking long and hard about it.

The strongest argument against Romney (again a tactical consideration) is that through our generations of mush and compromise we have successfully persuaded the country that we have “tried” things we haven’t tried at all. G.K. Chesterton once commented that Christianity had not been tried and found wanting, it had been found difficult and not tried. Something similar has happened in the political realm.

We think we “tried” capitalism. We think we “tried” conservatism. If Romney is elected, he will elected as someone who ran as a conservative. If the next wave of economic troubles hit us (think, Europe going down), and Romney then throws Paul Ryan under that bus that everybody keeps talking about, and proceeds to stink it up with TARPS Galore, then the electorate will have every reason to believe that we “tried” the market approach yet again and that it failed yet again. It will not be seen as the failure of Lightweight Liberalism over against Hard Left Liberalism, which would have been worse.

One of the reasons why Obama has been successful in ramming his socialism down our throats is because we previously acquiesced in allowing George W.’s economic approach to be described as “market conservatism.” And though it wasn’t, it is now.

In the meantime, let me do at least this much for David Bahnsen. We are going to be discussing this a lot between now and the election. If you live in a swing state, don’t just assume what you have to do. Don’t jump to conclusions. Think it through, pray it through, talk to your friends, and, of course, leave pithy comments here from time to time. Try to make them real stumpers.

Letter From America

Romney Ruminations: Feeling the Pain

Now that Mitt Romney has the Republican nomination effectively sewn up, conservatives in the US are trying to rationalise supporting him.  The rationalisations run from “he’s fifty times better than Obama, so let’s overlook the lacunae on his resume” to “he really is a conservative–don’t worry too much about his past performances because he is a recent convert”.

Jonah Goldberg offers his two cents worth:

The case for Mitt Romney
By JONAH GOLDBERG
Published Feb 7, 2012

Years ago a friend told me a story from her days living in South America. The movie “Wayne’s World” had come out, and she went to see it. She spoke English, but it was interesting to read the Spanish subtitles.

For instance, early in the film, Wayne says: “Shyeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!”

The Spanish subtitles read: “Yes, when judgment day comes.”

Needless to say, something was lost in translation.

This, in a nutshell, is Mitt Romney’s biggest problem. A late immigrant to conservatism, Romney doesn’t speak the language naturally. He shares traits with both Al Gore, whose stiffness bordered on the animatronic, and George H.W. Bush, whose contempt for the song-and-dance of elections was transparent.

Gore tried to compensate for his inadequacies by shouting, like an ugly American who thinks a foreigner will understand him if he only talks louder. Bush fell back on recitations of patriotic slogans and the generosity of providence that delivered Michael Dukakis as an opponent.

Romney hasn’t cracked the problem yet. He speaks conservatism as a second language, and his mastery of the basic grammar of politics is often spotty as well.

The examples at this point are beyond numerous enough to establish that most toxic of media fixations: a narrative. Journalists like typecasting politicians. Sarah Palin could announce she’s solved pi to the last digit and reconciled all of the inconsistencies in the TV show “Lost,” and the New York Times would still call her an idiot. Gore could kill a man in a bar fight with a broken pool cue, and he’d still be a cold fish.

Many conservatives argue that Romney’s stiffness is a superficial objection, and that he’s a solid conservative who can appeal to moderates and independents. Other conservatives think Romney’s lack of fluency is a real problem, not because it proves he’s faking his conservatism but because it would put him at a severe disadvantage in the general election in the same way authentic but stiff liberals like Gore and John Kerry suffered from their inability to comfortably interface with carbon-based life.

And others simply think Romney’s a big faker.

It’s this last group of anti-Romney holdouts I’d like to address. First, let me say: I feel your pain. The Tea Party arose in no small part out of a delayed allergic reaction to the rhetorical and, to a lesser extent, policy problems of George W. Bush’s presidency and the deep resentment that came with having to vote for John McCain in 2008. These disappointments were visited upon the conservative base by something the naysayers (often problematically) call “the Republican establishment.”

After what seems like an eternity under Obama, and with the raised expectations from the Tea Party’s earlier successes, conservatives are extremely reluctant to settle or compromise simply on the say-so of the establishment. For good reasons and bad, Romney seems like a compromise. And no matter how begrudgingly a conservative comes to accept the reality of Romney’s nomination, the diehards immediately proclaim any support for Romney to be proof of membership in the establishment. In fact, it seems like the best definition of a Republican establishment member these days is simply someone who has made peace with his disappointment prematurely.

Let me try to offer some solace. Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a President who owes you than to have one who claims to own you.

A President Romney would be on a very short leash. A President Gingrich would probably chew through his leash in the first 10 minutes of his presidency and wander off into trouble. If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal ObamaCare, implement Rep. Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments.

Moreover, Romney is not a man of vision. He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to “fix” health care in ways Massachusetts would like. He was told to fix the 2002 Olympics. He was told to create Bain Capital. He did it all. The man does his assignments.

In this light, voting for Romney isn’t a betrayal, it’s a transaction. No, that’s not very exciting or reassuring for those who’d sooner see monkeys fly out their nethers than compromise again. But such a bargain may just be necessary before judgment day comes.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. You can write to him by e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.com, or via Twitter @JonahNRO.