The San Francisco Chronicle looks at the election aftermath here.

(The article features the least eloquent quote I’ve probably ever given a newspaper.)

Here’s my column on the election from today’s N.Y. Post:

A COUPLE of big things expired Tuesday night: the usefulness of the trite Red/Blue dichotomy in American politics, and the George W. Bush/Karl Rove dream of the Republican Party holding a “permanent majority.”

But one big new thing was born: the interior West (the eight states off the West Coast: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) as America’s new political swing region.

Conservatives may not realize it yet, but all this will benefit the Republican Party in years to come.

And, of course, I give a roundup of the Republican losses (and close calls) in the West.

Brink Lindsey at Cato responds to Ramesh here.

My previous response is here.

Red vs. Blue is over. The dream of a Republican “permanent majority” is over. Both deaths are good news for conservatism.

I think people who read me by this point know I don’t spin, and I certainly don’t carry water for the GOP. So believe me when I say: I consider Tuesday’s results a genuine victory for conservatism.

I don’t support a single thing the Democrats want to do with their new-found power, but I voted a straight Democratic ticket (outside of some local races … I couldn’t vote for Andrew Cuomo for AG in New York … but anyway). I cheered on election night for the Democrats.

But now, starting on Day One, my focus is on how to rebuild. How to win the presidency in 2008. How to take back Congress eventually. How to begin building a Republican Party with a focus on limiting the power and size of the federal government but also with a proper understanding of the role of government in the social sphere. Obviously this isn’t an easy task. And after so many years of Bush/Rove, big-government conservatism and the God-and-government coalition it’s hard to even imagine. But there is a legacy we can look back to: Goldwater, Reagan, and even some aspects of Gingrich.

For an in-depth description, well, the fullest picture I can paint is in my book. (Sheesh… I sound like Sullivan.)

But the basics are described by the term “fusionism.” Libertarians and social conservatives should both be able to agree that small-government is the goal. An expanding state is a threat not just to the wallet but to the family. You can’t force morality and virtue on people. You can only leave them free to live their lives. And to the extent that we must deal with divisive social issues in a political context — such as, say, gay marriage — local control is the best way to avoid vitriolic national culture wars. Cultural federalism is an idea I flesh out a bit in the conclusion of my book, and I think it’s a concept with which Republicans, in particular, should become acquainted.

So, onto the rebuilding. National Review’s cover story this week can help get the ball rolling. House leadership elections will also be a crucial opportunity. I think the goal should be 100% turnover in the House leadership. Boehner may be a fine man, but we need to wash the stench of the Hastert years off of this party. Rep. Mike Pence is the kind of principled conservative who could bring some real credibility to the fight to take back the majority. Sure, he’s definitely more of a social conservative than I might like, but he understands the Reagan legacy — and he’s been out there taking on the president and the congressional leadership from way back before it was popular.

More thoughts, of course, in coming days. And, I’ll have a column in tomorrow’s N.Y. Post on the strategic picture and how the election stacked up against the thesis of my book.

But, those are some first thoughts.

Don Devine at the American Conservative Union argues for finding victory in defeat, in the new Conservative Battleline:

If you were a political party that had used earmarks and special interest government spending to a degree unprecedented in recent history to shore up weak incumbents in a tough year under an unpopular president and you won the election anyway, what would you conclude? Elections can be bought with government spending? The New Deal slogan “spend, spend, elect, elect” would become the official anthem of the Grand Old Party, no?

A lot of conservatives obviously felt this way before Tuesday, so it’s not just spin.

Meanwhile, in the same issue, Paul Weyrich (interviewed at length in the book) makes the case for a revitalized conservatism:

Every political movement that succeeds pays a price for its success. In its early stages, as an outsider, it can be true to its agenda. But once it takes power, it inevitably comes to find much of its agenda politically inconvenient. It gets in the way of making deals, gaining more power and collecting money. In time, it ceases to be a real movement and becomes an Establishment.

Regrettably, I have to say this has happened to most of the existing conservative movement, with the exception of the Religious Right. It has gotten in bed with the Republican Party, which provides access, influence and resources to those who will play along. The price has been a “conservatism” that in many respects bears little resemblance to what many of us thought we were fighting for. Most conservative institutions support or are at least silent about a Republican Party government that will not control spending, has driven deficits up to dangerous levels, exports America’s industrial base through “free trade,” promotes ever-larger and more intrusive Federal government and follows a Wilsonian foreign policy. In the face of this abandonment of our old agenda, it is not surprising that it is hard to speak of a conservative “movement” anymore, again excepting the Religious Right. Most of the troops have gone home in disgust.

The old conservative movement is now so compromised that it has little grass-roots credibility. This is the first reason the next conservatism needs a new movement. The existing movement just isn’t real anymore.

Obviously I disagree with the idea that only the Religious Right is pure in all of this. But the overall sentiment is right.

…well, me:

What should worry Republicans most, however, is erosion of its strength in the West and in two states in particular: Colorado and Arizona. Fours years ago, Colorado was solidly Republican. Since then, Democrats have won a Senate seat, two House seats, the governorship, and both houses of the state legislature. At the state level, that’s realignment.

In Arizona, Republicans dropped two House seats and Republican Senator John Kyl got a mild scare. Kyl, by the way, may be finest and most able senator in Washington. He’s certainly in the top five. Meanwhile, Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano cruised to victory.

The bottom line is this: Colorado and Arizona may not be there for Republicans in the 2008 presidential race. Of course, everything depends on the actual candidates, but these two states start out as presidential swing states. This is a new development.

Call it least one argument for nominating John McCain. (erkkksdkdskkkmnuuuuu … [sound of me gagging])

The West is where it’s at. And libertarians matter in the West.

From my hometown congressional district, the GOP has now lost Medicare prescription-drug bill co-author Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT).

Satisfying.

Death to big-government conservatism!

Before anyone pins this on me and my kind, I oppose pretty much all third-party spoiler candidacies.

My first rule of politics: Don’t be a jackass.

That goes for Nader; that goes for capital-L Libertarians.

(Since I’m a commentator, not a politician, I can be a jackass.)

Here.

Whatever else happens tonight, Santorum’s defeat marks a great day for conservatism and a great day for America.

UPDATE I: She also seems not to realize that Santorum has repudiated the principles of Reagan far more than Lincoln Chafee ever has or likely will.

UPDATE II: Welcome outraged Cornerites. K. Lo responds to the “The Ryan-Sager-Dick-Armey Wing of the Right Side of the Spectrum.”

I like that we have our own wing now, though I’m not sure I’m crazy about playing Robin to his Batman.

Anyway, before I get too many outraged emails (I’ll still get them, but that’s OK), I’m not just rejoicing in Republican defeat — though I think the GOP richly deserves defeat this year. Santorum, as I explain in a bit of detail here, is the utter antithesis of the fusionist conservative movement spawned by National Review decades ago. He explicitly does not place the individual at the center of his political thought, in contravention of everything this country stands for. He promotes big government and intrusive government in every aspect of American life — the only difference between him and Hillary Clinton is that she does so toward “liberal” ends and Santorum does so toward “conservative” ends.

Reagan wouldn’t recognize this conservatism. Goldwater would give Santorum a swift kick in the ass.

UPDATE III: I’ll be interested to see the final numbers in the Casey-Santorum race. If it’s really closer to a 20-point blow out than the 12-point blow out the polls have been predicting, here’s a question (two, really): Did K. Lo just have no clue when she kept confidently predicting a Santorum upset, or was she deliberately/carelessly misleading National Review readers to try to cheer them up and motivate them to vote? Neither option is a ringing endorsement of NR’s journalistic standards.

I don’t think it’s available online to non-subscribers, but the cover story of the November 20, 2006, National Review is about the current conservative crack-up. It’s by Ramesh Ponnuru and titled “Conservatives on the Couch: A Diagnosis.” As it uses my book as a jumping-off point for many of its arguments, I thought I’d respond at a hopefully modest length. And I thought I’d do so before the midterms — as we’ll all have plenty of analysis to do of that mess once it happens.

First, I’d like to thank Ramesh for penning an extremely thoughtful article, and one with which I disagree much less than he might assume.

Niceties out of the way, I’d like to start off by saying there is one thing that perpetually irks me about Ramesh’s, and NR’s, approach to this entire debate we’re all having about the future of conservatism: He spends a lot of time arguing that small-government conservatism is not politically viable (while reaffirming his support for it) but precious little time exploring how it might be made more viable. Perhaps this is a subject we’ll all be devoting more time to in coming months — in which case, let’s have at it; there’s nothing I’d like to hear more than some new ideas on the topic.

And so, with all that throat clearing out of the way, onto a few points in Ramesh’s article I want to take, er, point-by-point:

* “Stop blaming the Religious Right!” [not a verbatim quote]:

Ramesh, as well as other critics of my book, have started from the assumption that I’m blaming the Religious Right for big-government conservatism. Yes and no — with the emphasis on the no. I think what Newt Gingrich calls “incumbentitis” in the book is the bigger culprit, at least when it comes to government spending. Republicans want to get reelected, so they pass a Medicare prescription-drug bill, they protect themselves from criticism by passing McCain-Feingold, and they bring home the pork. Where the Religious Right fits in is two-fold: 1) They’ve grown too comfortable promoting things like faith-based initiatives and abstinence-only sex education because they feel safe so long as the GOP is in charge; 2) they’re as eager as ever to go after gays, and the GOP has no compunctions about bringing the federal government into a hospital room in Florida if it will make James Dobson & Co. happy. The result is a GOP dead-set on big government in the economic and personal spheres. And that’s a GOP that has precisely nothing to offer libertarians.

* “So? Who cares about libertarians?” [also not verbatim]:

Apparently, no one. But I obviously think that’s a mistake. Ramesh gives a clever reading of the recent survey out from the Cato Institute showing that libertarians (loosely defined) make up about 15 percent of the American electorate and that those voters swung heavily away from Bush between 2000 and 2004. The clever reading: It doesn’t matter, because Bush won the election without them; whatever repelled the libertarians (think: prescription drugs and the Federal Marriage Amendment) attracted other voters.

This, however, is too clever by half. The fact is, we don’t know for certain what repelled the libertarians or what attracted the voters that gave Bush his 51 percent. But if the War on Terror and Iraq moved voters in the middle (as seems likely, given that the election was fought on that ground), and the libertarians were repulsed primarily by fiscal and social issues, then you’d have a situation where the libertarians’ defection is lasting but the swing-voters’ time with the GOP is limited.

I’m not saying this is precisely correct (things are complicated by the number of libertarians opposed to the war in Iraq). But I think this approximates reality.

One reason for my belief is that I don’t think social issues swung the election: I don’t buy the marriage-amendments-mattered argument. Turnout in battleground states with gay-marriage initiatives in 2004 actually went up slightly less than turnout in battleground states without such initiatives, according to an analysis by Lake Research Partners. What’s more, while Bush’s share of the (socially conservative, yet not typically Republican) black vote in Ohio went from 9 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2004 (with a marriage amendment on the ballot), Bush was up by roughly the same amount with blacks in Florida and California, states without initiatives. Meanwhile, Bush’s share of the black vote dropped 6 points in Arkansas, a state with a gay-marriage initiative. Essentially, then, there was no meaningful correlation between gay marriage and Bush’s share of the black vote, which was only up 2 percent nationally.

* “You can’t win libertarians without losing someone else.” [I’m paraphrasing … you get the drift]:

My argument, of course, has never been that courting libertarians would “paint the map red,” in Hugh Hewitt’s language, but that abandoning those libertarians already in the GOP coalition could lead to electoral disaster in the interior West. Ramesh’s response is that by losing strength in the interior West, we can gain it in the upper Midwest.

Color me skeptical. If the Republican plan is to risk losing its traditional hold on the leave-me-alone, cowboys-and-ranchers (and now telecommuters) West in order to gain strength in the losing-population, dying-industry Midwest, that’s one more giant leap away from the type of coalition anyone interested in small government is going to want to put together.

How much trouble does the GOP really face in the West? We’ll get a better sense tomorrow, of course. At least five of the eight governorships in the interior West will be in Democratic hands come Wednesday (up from four in 2004 and zero in 2000) — and maybe one or two more. Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana may yet hang on, or he may not. And a bunch of House seats will be lost in the region.

* Lastly, here’s how Ramesh ends up summing up the “real” crisis in American conservatism:

[It] can be boiled down to two propositions. The first is that, at least as the American electorate is presently constituted, there is no imaginable political coalition in America capable of sustaining a majority that takes a reduction of the scope of the federal government as one of its central tasks. The second is that modern American conservatism is incapable of organizing itself without taking that as a central mission.

I think this is by-and-large correct.

The question, then, is what does one do with this information. Ramesh looks at most things the Republicans have done and pronounces them necessary evils. If we hadn’t passed the Medicare bill, we would have lost. If we hadn’t courted statist social conservatives (particularly in the South and the Midwest), we would be a minority party. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But if this is the only criteria by which to judge our actions, we might as well pack up and go home. It will always be easier and more politically advantageous to spend more, to promise more, to expand the government more. There will always be more populists (a.k.a. the mob) than there will be advocates of limited, constitutional government. If all we want is to feed the lust of the mob, then by all means let’s get on with it. They’ll devour us eventually anyway.

Or, instead, we could try to figure out how to do less bad things — and, hell, maybe even some good things — to keep our majority. I offer a few ideas in my book, based around a return to Frank Meyer’s concept of fusionism (entitlement reform, school choice, leaving marriage and other contentious social issues to the states), finding points of agreement between libertarians and traditionalists. Ramesh seems to agree this is a starting point.

But, of course, it’s only the faintest of starting points. Growing the investor class, the Ownership Society — nothing has yet proved capable of expanding support for smaller government. (Though, I’d argue — and, in fact, I do argue in the book — that the Ownership Society hasn’t really been tried.) It’s time for new ideas. And, hopefully, after the election, the GOP will be shaken up enough to start thinking of some.

I can’t wait.

* Okay, one last, last point. Somewhat optimistically, Ramesh argues at the end of his piece that small-government conservatives shouldn’t worry, because big-government conservatism won’t take:

Anti-statists can take heart, in a way, from the second horn of the dilemma. Conservatives don’t seem to be able to move forward in any other way than theirs. Every attempted makeover of the conservative movement and Republican party over the last 15 years has been driven by the political weakness of anti-statism. Patrick Buchanan tried to throw out the free traders to bring in socially conservative union members. George W. Bush offered a “compassionate” (read: more statist) conservatism. John McCain and his fans had a “national-greatness conservatism.” Conservatism has rejected each ideological novelty like a body rejecting a transplant.

I’m not sure I share the optimism. I can easily see the GOP becoming a cozy “God-and-government” coalition, a truly populist party. Bolstered by the War on Terror and a weak Democratic Party — and having jettisoned its libertarian/small-government wing entirely — it could essentially be unbeatable and accountable to no one.

It’s a dark vision for conservatives, but I think a very plausible one. That’s why I’m rooting against today’s GOP on Tuesday (uh … today).

The Economist gets a bit ahead of itself, performing an autopsy on the still-standing elephant:

Ugly compromise is the essence of politics. But the Bush Republicans have backed down so often on the domestic front that some of their erstwhile supporters wonder what they stand for, apart from winning elections.

Read the whole thing. It does a pretty nice job taking apart big-government conservatism.

Over at National Review Online, John Derbyshire joins the axis of Sullivan and Sager and calls (with some reservations and teetering) for conservatives to throw the Republican bums out.

I’m biased toward this article because Derbyshire calls my book “indispensable.” But as with Derb’s recent recounting of his own non-religiosity, this is must reading on the state of modern conservatism.

There are no good options for conservatives this year, but the standard NR line that no matter how far off course the Republicans are we must stand by them no longer seems plausible. Will this whole debate be short-circuited if the GOP pulls it out tomorrow? I hope not. Because, as I’ve said before, even if the GOP can keep winning elections, that doesn’t mean conservatism has triumphed. In fact, given the modern GOP, it will mean exactly the opposite.