Kathryn Lopez


You might think I'm crazy for using the word "thriving." I don't blame you. After all, didn't Newsweek just announce with a "There Will Be Blood" cover that right-wing, talk-radio hosts are devoted to destroying the Republican nominee for president? Didn't conservatives just fail in an overhyped quest for "the next Ronald Reagan"? Aren't some popular, right-leaning op-ed writers going for the jugular, admonishing political and ideological teammates to "grow up," quit the "temper tantrum" and just support John McCain for president?

Sure, that's all true. It's not always a happy family on the right side of the political spectrum. But those vital signs do not indicate a stagnant movement.

On the contrary, the Republican presidential primary (which, for all purposes, has been over since Mitt Romney dropped out at the beginning of February) was bursting with conservative life. As I was trying to wrap Christmas presents, colleagues were eagerly calling and asking, "Did you hear what Rush said today?" The king of talk radio was criticizing McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for their statist tendencies, while praising Fred Thompson and ultimately embracing Romney for his conservative policies and uplifting rhetoric about American exceptionalism. Rush Limbaugh may not have "won" in the end, inasmuch as McCain wasn't his preferred candidate, but he also wasn't playing a game with a scoreboard. He was reflecting on conservative principles. He was doing what he does every day; he was applying his basic political philosophy to real-life politics.

He was asking himself, "What would Bill Buckley do?"

In a conversation with Limbaugh a few months back, talking about issues long and short term, he told me that that's exactly the question everyone who calls himself a conservative should be asking. Not because we're unrealistically deifying our now-deceased friend and mentor, as some have accused us of doing with Ronald Reagan, but because Buckley was a founder, practitioner and teacher of this thing we call conservatism. His speeches, columns, magazine and books sought to answer one central question. What is Right here?

Kathryn Lopez
