Reform Conservatism

Jeremy Reff and Reihan don't understand my response to Ramesh. Here's Reihan:

Threading this needle will be difficult. My sense is that Andrew believes that supporting Palin is wrongheaded at the very least, if not dangerously deranged. But many of the voters who agree with him feel the same way about a rigorous adherence to small government ideology.

Politics is certainly about ideas, but it is also about weaving together a coalition. Obama, I’ve been led to understand from people close to him, believes that compromise and consensus is good for its own sake there is a value to the deliberative process of building democratic agreements. So while Ramesh could argue for small government conservatism and let majority-building be damned, he wouldn’t be participating in the hurly-burly of democratic politics.

Or Ramesh could stick rigorously to small government conservatism and use what Jacobs and Shapiro call crafted language to deceive voters into going along with a program that, when described forthrightly, wouldn’t prove very popular. I think that would be a shame.