As The New York Times helpfully suggested on Friday, “Mr. [Jeb] Bush would benefit most if those Republicans who do run vie for the support of the party’s hard-liners. That would fracture the conservative base, leaving an opening for him among more moderate-leaning Republicans.” John McCain, sought out by Mr. Bush for advice (as the paper of record put it) on “how to run for president without pandering to the party’s conservative base,” offered this aphoristic summary at the end of the article: “Lock up the center and let them fight it out on the right.”
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is the conspiracy, just as one imagines. How do conservative and libertarian insurgents respond? With a truly republican process and candidate. Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist essays on the executive branch (numbers 67-77) suggest that both were in the minds of the founders as they designed the institution, and both will be required to recover something closer to the Constitution’s energetic but limited presidency after eight years of President Obama’s Progressive, hegemonic alternative. The first step is ensuring that the establishment conspiracy fails—by no means an easy task.
Although things appear to be a bit snippy at the moment between the Romney and Bush clans (fun holiday party game: just whose wealth and high-finance investments are the greater liability?), we can expect the establishment to pull off its part of their plan, consolidating around one anointed candidate. Sadly, if recent history is any guide, we should expect the insurgents to carry out their part, too, allowing their preference for this one conservative or libertarian candidate to undermine the more important effort to nominate any one.
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