For any number of reasons — all of them quite sound — I never expected to be involved in a three-way with Andrew Sullivan. Yet, that’s just where I find myself in the latest Economist. There, the magazine reviews Sullivan’s book, my own, and Stephen Slivinski’s “Buck Wild,” as part of a “conservatives gone wild” omnibus review.

Here’s a snippet:

Just about everything that could have gone wrong for the Republican Party has done — and then some. The ever-worsening news from Iraq is bad enough. Then, there is a far-reaching bribery scandal and, most recently, that trove of obscene-mails from a Republican congressman to teenage boys working as pages on Capitol Hill. Except for the fact that both parties have conspired for years to rig the voting system in favour of incumbents, the Republicans hope that in next month’s mid-term elections they will get away with merely losing control of the House of Representatives.

The strange thing is that many American conservatives actually want them to lose the House — and even to see the Senate go the same way. The authors reviewed here are among them. Their books try to explain this puzzling state of affairs and to fathom what has gone wrong with one of the most potent political movements America has ever seen.

…

“The Elephant in the Room” is Ryan Sager’s impressive run at the simpler book Mr Sullivan might have confined himself to. Mr Sager, a writer and blogger for the New York Post, also starts by dividing American conservatives into two groups, but in a more straightforward and familiar way. The southern branch is evangelical and socially conservative. The western branch has instincts that in many, though not all, places would be called liberal: it favours limited government, fiscal restraint and personal liberty. The Republicans based their success on an alliance of those two quite dissimilar constituencies. It was an unstable marriage, not to be taken for granted; that was the party’s mistake.

The Republicans’ conquest of the South, wresting southern social conservatives from the Democratic Party, was the great political breakthrough — and consolidating that support has lately been the party’s principal aim. The southern branch was given what it wanted, which sharpened its appetite for more, and the party kept on giving. The frugal westerners were neglected and marginalised. The result was big-government conservatism — and a failing marriage. Whether the alliance can still be saved is unclear. Mr Sager is hopeful and has some suggestions. The story of the impending break-up is excellent material, and the author tells it well.

…

Soon the party will find out whether it matters that these authors — intelligent conservatives, natural Republican supporters — are in one way or another rooting for the other side. A drubbing is richly deserved, to be sure. For the sake of the ideas that Republicans used to champion, and for the sake of the party itself, a drubbing might indeed be the best thing.

Needless to say, I agree with the review’s drift. And as for 2006 … yep. We’ll see.