Ford, Reagan and the Conservative Uprising

Jonathan Martin has written a very interesting piece for National Review Online about the 1976 contest for the Republican presidential nomination between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. I remember well that primary season, and the convention in Kansas City in August of that year, as well as the excietment that Reagan seemed to generate. As Martin suggests, I believe that that primary battle did truly mark the end of the Establishment, moderate era in the GOP. The dwindling numbers of the so called moderates in the Republican ranks would seem to bear out that analysis. Ford is of course to be credited for his hard fought win over Reagan. Indeed, I expect that it is likely that the bitterness of that defeat left the conservatives all the more determined to finish the job in 1980, which we obviously did.

Paleoconservative Primer

Bill Calhoun has presented this pretty good primer on paleoconservatism over at Capitol Hill Coffee House, explaining who paleos are and what they believe. In the aftermath of this year's Republican election debacle, there is a war for the soul of the party, and of conservatism, on the horizon, and its best to know and understand the players and competing philosophies.