William Smith wants me to talk about David Brooks' column today, which singles out the success of a bunch of my friends and acquaintances as the "one genuine bright spot" for conservatism. Basically, you can group the thinkers Brooks' identifies into a few categories. Paleocons (Daniel Larison, Matt Poulos), Libertarians (Julian Sanchez, Megan McArdle, Will Wikinson), Christian Democrats (Ross Douthat, Ramesh Ponnuru), and Reihan Salam (Reihan Salam). Save for Matt Continetti (edit -- and Ponnuru, come to think of it), what you couldn't comfortably say about any of these thinkers is that they're Republicans. Reading that list, I'd score it almost evenly for Obama. That's not a criticism of Brooks' column, per se. Interesting thinkers are interesting thinkers, and not all conservatives need be, or even should be, Republicans. But since we are talking about contemporary political commentators, you'd want a fair amount of engagement with where the modern Republican party might travel in the near future. If that's your point of focus, then the libertarians, the paleocons, and the Reihan Salam are, for better or worse, out. Continetti is in, but I'm not certain what in his work suggests a break with the current party. And so you're really left with Douthat and Ponnuru.
