The Clinton Rules

While some conservative activists have the idea to rebuild their party by using the Obama-Dean inclusive vision of organizing and party infrastructure in service to the exclusive vision of conservatism, and others are waging jihad against anyone who dares cross Sarah Palin (by the power of Grayskull Redstate, we will purge you!!!), I think we know how this is all going to turn out, right?

HH: And I think he will be very concerned with the two issues I’m going to raise with you – national security and immigration. Now I believe the Committee On the Present Danger filled a need in the 70s which we need to reorganize an equivalent now. But what do you think, Bill Kristol?

BK: Oh, I agree, and we did a little of that in the 90s with the Project For the New American Century. And I actually think there are people talking about this. And there’s a lot of good foreign policy and defense thinking on our side, the Fred Kagans and Bob Kagans and Reuel Gerechts of the world, Victor Davis Hanson, et cetera. But a little bit of a political organization for them wouldn’t be bad. And I think we should support Obama, incidentally, if he does the right thing.

OF COURSE there will be another PNAC. As the media - and lots of Democrats - do the conservatives' dirty work for them by warning Obama not to read any kind of Democratic victory into the resounding Presidential and Congressional victory, the connected white men at the top of the party will shrink into the background, plot, seek ways to undermine the new President, and basically lie in wait. They aren't going to throw money into 50-state organizing or the Internet - that's for the little people. They are convinced that Obama's agenda will fail and they will stand ready, using their message machine to continue to feed rancid ideas into the media bloodstream. They've already got most of the Democratic Party urging for bipartisanship and restraint like the well-trained litter Grover Norquist et al. always wanted them to be. Fox News and right-wing radio and blogs will continue to work themselves into frenzies. Direct-mail groups will start sending letters to the base about how mysterious that Obama's grandmother and the Nevada state director died on the same day - they'll be added to the Obama Death List. Regnery books arguing against the radical Obama vision will fly off the shelves and into the pulping machines, with the authors all over cable news. AEI and Heritage will schedule conferences on "Why Moving The Top Tax Rate To 39% Kills Poor People" and other illuminating subjects. It will still be difficult to break a filibuster, and the minority party won't make it any easier on anything that matters.

The right doesn't have to "do" anything, I imagine is the consensus. All the structures of an opposition movement already exist, they just have to turn on the switch and sit back and wait.

Now, the question is whether our side has learned anything from 1993-94, or not.