Whither the G.O.P.? A Republican Report Worth Reading

During the mid-nineteenth century, the Tory Party in Britain got a reputation as the stupid party, a moniker that many attribute to John Stuart Mill. (“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”) It wasn’t so much that the party’s leaders were dumb—Palmerston was a clever fellow, and so was Disraeli—but that the majority of the party, the lumpen aristocracy and its hangers on, appeared to have set its face against the modern world.

Recently, the G.O.P. has been heading in the direction of the Tories. Watching last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, for example, it was hard to see much evidence of a party coming to terms with the fact that it has lost the popular vote in five out of the last six Presidential elections. The most memorable speech came from Sarah Palin, who suggested that Karl Rove be dispatched back to Texas for having the temerity to call for some of the party’s loonier candidates to be vetted a mite more closely.

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