Wanted: Conservative Intellectuals

Nate Silver wonders about the party intelligence gap:

Republicans have gradually been losing the egghead vote. I wonder how that translates into their ability to recruit strategists and "thought-leaders" who can work on the campaign, policy and media sides and help to lead them out of their current slump.

I think it's real. It's never been that easy being an intellectual on the right. I spent most of my college and grad school years in mortal combat. But the degeneracy of the Republican party today makes every thinking person I know wince. It doesn't debunk conservative ideas about the failures of government solutions, the wisdom of markets, the necessity for sound money and balanced budgets, or the need for prudence in foreign policy. But the association with these debt-ridden, torture-loving, big government authoritarians is awful. And people are only human. What serious thinker wants to support the party of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck?