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).