Obama Will Define The GOP

There's a lot of sudden chatter about what the core meaning of conservatism is. That's different, of course, from what the core direction of Republicanism will be. I think a huge amount of the future of the GOP is less up to the Republican leadership and "conservative" intelligentsia than to what Obama does and how the opposition reacts.

With any luck, Obama will force the right to go back to the critique of managed economies, of industrial policy, of debt and "progressive" taxation that helped restore conservatism in the 1970s. And the decline of the culture wars facilitated by Obama's generational shift may prompt Republicans to appreciate the role of federalism and secularism in public as well as responsibility and faith in private.

Or the GOP could respond viscerally to a multi-cultural, internationally-minded, pragmatic liberalism by ratcheting up the anti-gay, prohibitionist, neo-racist paranoia represented by Palin, Perkins, and the gang. I'd bet on both happening. But Obama has much more influence over this than anyone in the GOP right now. If he hews to the center economically, and stays sober culturally, he could prompt a conservative renaissance ... by the end of his second term.