NRO's Jonah Goldberg worries that conservative cosmetics are replacing conservative thought.
Conservatism is starting to have an identity-politics problem all its own. I think conservatism needs to spend less time defending candidates for who they are, and more time supporting candidates for what they intend to do.
Bush’s inability to articulate arguments had nothing to do with his Texan-ness or his Christianity, but a lot of folks on the right defended him as if that were the case. “He speaks American, don’t you get it?”
To which I’d reply: “No, he speaks badly.”
The question is how much of Rick Perry's appeal lies in Rick Perry's don't-tread-on-me-ness versus what Perry believes.
One of the reasons I think some conservatives are so excited about Perry is that he has the record to match the rhetoric; whereas, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are thinner there.
