Dylan Hales

March 06, 2009

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to discover the new blog group Front Porch Republic.  This new venture is a joint project of several excellent localist conservatives and decentralists, including (but not restricted to) Bill Kauffman, Daniel Larison, and Allan Carlson.  The site design is impressive and it looks to be a wonderful outlet for a segment of the Right that doesn’t always get its due in other venues.

Conversely, David Frum’s latest outfit New Majority, continues to be a cornucopia of irrelevance.  Barely read, and almost never discussed, Frum’s site is sub-Geocities from an aesthetic standpoint, and about as professional looking as the web page I made in ninth grade to honor the pro wrestling career of Mick Foley.  This past week Frum decided the conservative principle of prudence was best served by writing a piece throwing Barry Goldwater and the movement he spearheaded under the bus:

“The Goldwater myth shuts down all attempts to reform and renew our conservative message for modern times. And it offers a handy justification for nominating a 2012 presidential candidate who might otherwise seem disastrously unelectable. Altogether, the myth invites dangerous and self-destructive behavior by a party that cannot afford either.

What happened in 1964 was an unredeemed and unmitigated catastrophe for Republicans and conservatives. The success that followed 16 years later was a matter of happenstance, not of strategy. That?s the real lesson of 1964, and it is the lesson that conservatives need most to take to heart today.”

Moderation in defense of electability is no vice!  Yeah, that’s just the message to take from the election of 08…