The Fall of Conservatism

The prolonged but now complete Democratic primary process has obscured a topic that was in much debate only a few months ago: the fall of conservatism (with a lower-case 'c'). Conservatism (with an upper-case 'C') is still alive in its purest form, as evidenced by Ron Paul's improbably massive fundraising in the early stages of the Republican primary process (which has allowed him to continue to campaign for the Presidency even as John McCain declared victory some months ago), but George W. Bush's 'compassionate conservatism', championed by the vast majority of current elected Republicans, is now dead. We now know (well, I suppose about 50% of us knew this 8 years ago) that if you increase spending without increasing taxes, you end up with A FUCKING ENORMOUS DEFICIT. Throw in war, recession and domestic policy predicated on winning 51% support and you end up with A FUCKING ENORMOUS DEFICIT and miserable, divided people. So can John McCain be the standard bearer for a new (old) conservatism?
A piece in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago is the first (to my knowledge) since Obama's victory became inevitable to reexamine the factionalism of America's conservative party and people.

An excerpt:

Yuval Levin, a former Bush White House official, who is now a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, agrees with Gingrich’s diagnosis [that the Republican party has an identity crisis and can't simply run an anti-Obama campaign to win the presidency]. “There’s an intellectual fatigue, even if it hasn’t yet been made clear by defeat at the polls,” he said. “The conservative idea factory is not producing as it did. You hear it from everybody, but nobody agrees what to do about it.”

Pat Buchanan was less polite, paraphrasing the social critic Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."