"how is any conservative reform-skeptic not absolutely frantic at the prospect of a McCain presidency?"

Here's an answer borne of close observation of real American conservatives over many years: they aren't really all that conservative anymore. That is, their own behavior nullifies their rhetorical stands.

Look at Brooks' list of needed improvements:

On #1, health care, where are the conservative congresscritters who have junked their federally-provided health insurance in favor of purchasing plans on the private market? More broadly, how many Republican doctors do you know who still think our private system is working well, or worth preserving at all costs? 30 years ago, most docs were adamantly opposed, but today, I'd bet that most docs in this country, including "conservative" ones, support some form of UHC.

On energy, ex-CIA chief Jim Woolsey has been driving a Prius and telling everyone about it for years now. Krauthammer has for many years now penned an annual column urging a floor beneath gas prices and a $2/gallon tax.  Again, most "conservatives" recognize that federal intervention is absolutely critical if we're to stop shipping hundreds of billions to foreign gangster regimes that wish us ill.

On human capital, "conservative" financiers donate billions collectively to a higher education system that is saturated with federal intervention. "Conservative" VCs and other investors reap billions, collectively, from new companies whose technologies were incubated in federally-funded university research programs or labs.

On financial markets, "conservatives" aren't pro-market, they're pro-banker. Bailouts and artificially low interest rates, ie subsidies to the financial sector, are cool with them.

On infrastructure (especially the transportation system), please. There is no "conservative" opposition to federal highway largesse (including bridges to nowhere).

Maybe it's time for our political and pundit classes to get rid of these stupid labels and constructs. If you have to frame issues in terms of some kind of thesis-antithesis, I'd suggest the one between saving and consumption, maybe also between programs that disproportionately benefit adults without children and those which would, theoretically, shift our focus toward working families with school age children. Just a thought.

Anyway, it would be far more useful and enlightening than this bogus "conservative" or "libertarian" labeling.

I sum it up in two word: judicial appointments.  Ok, two more words: vice president.  Johnny Mac dies in office, leaving us with some kind of horrific Cheney II and a conservative majority on the SCOTUS for the next 50 years.  What's not to like about that if you are a conservative?

Oops, change "savings and investment" to "savings/investment vs consumption". (Need some coffee here).

An economy built 70% on hundreds of millions of consumers buying stuff they don't need with money they don't have isn't exactly "conservative", now, is it?

He's not Black.

they may not be happy about it, but they sure know that they prefer him (and his judicial appointments) to any democrat. they're not dumb -- they'll vote for the lesser of two evils, just like most people. what do you expect them to do, start campaigning for bob barr?

Operative conservative (money folks) philosophy = I'm alright Jack, bend over and grab your bootstraps while I slip you something.

Actually the money guys like to use the word to bring out the "values" voters.

McCain is ultimately reassuring because he has none of the questionable associations and attitudes of an Obama.  His loyalty to the country and its values is never for a moment in doubt.  And, he doesn't have the Pelosi like voting record of Obama, either.

Given the choice, at this point McCain has the virtue of not being scary.  In this context, that is the equivalent to reassuring.

tep: I agree the labels are stupid and I appreciate your analysis.

Based on my personal experience, you're too kind to these folks who self-identify as conservatives. I find most of their positions spring from a very personal perspective - a fear of immigrants, a fear of gays, a fear of blacks, a fear born out of an essential pessimism regarding the future. They may project a certain arrogance, that John Wayne bullshit (or in Kristol's case, that Buckley bullshit), but they're scared.

I agree with the snark so far. I'd just like to add my own perspective: McCain has shown a willingness to bend his knee to the GOP Masters and serve at their leisure. This subservience to The Lords quells much angst among the electorate, who believe their candidate will uphold their agenda.

Perk: you do know Barr is pulling a significant (outcome altering) percentage of the Conservative vote in at least 3 states (including, i believe,  NV and ND)?

Republicans are wired to fall in line.  It's just in their DNA.  All they care about is being in the club.  They experience no cognitive dissonance from rapidly changing policies they are expected to support: abolish Dept of Ed ... to NCLB; a "humble" foreign policy ... to regime change and nation building; small government ... to 2003 Medicare Act; states rights ... to federalization of marriage policies.  I could go on all day...

Mice: touché ;-).

Tep: dead on.  I find nothing truly conservative in the attitude, position or policies of self-described "conservatives".  Right-wing religious fundamentalists will like McCain because of the Supreme Court nomination to replace John Paul Stevens; war-mongers like McCain because he likes war; tax-cutters like McCain because he will go with the current Republican flow on economic issues (he is a self-confessed ignoramus, so do not expect anything else); slash and burn anti-environmentalists will like McCain because he has never shown any interest in preserving and conserving the natural bounty of the United States for future generations.  

"An economy built 70% on hundreds of millions of consumers buying stuff they don't need with money they don't have isn't exactly 'conservative', now, is it?"

Again, dead on.  A "conservative" English Law Lord once remarked, "A vast majority of my forty years on the Bench has been devoted to sorting out the problems of people who signed documents they had not read, to buy things they did not need, with money they had not got."  QED.

Noam has some smart insights that touch on the subjects raised by David Brooks in his New York Times

I read Brooks' article early this morning and then read Chait's review of Naomi Klein's new book (in TNR).  Brooks says: "[P]eriods of great governmental change have often been periods of conservative rule. .... Two of the most prominent conservative reformers were Benjamin Disraeli and Theodore Roosevelt. Both reframed the political debate so that it was not change versus the status quo, it was unfamiliar change versus cautious, patriotic change designed to preserve the traditional virtues of the nation."  Klein says (quoting Milton Friedman): "Only a crisis--actual or perceived--produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."  Aren't Brooks and Klein (Friedman) saying the same thing, only from a somewhat different perspective?  Klein believes that conservatives actually dictate the change they want by employing the "shock doctrine", whereas Brooks merely sees an opportunity: "If McCain is going to win this election, it will because he can communicate an essential truth — that people in a great and successful nation do not want change for its own sake. But they do realize that it’s only through careful reform that they can preserve what they and their ancestors have so laboriously built."

I agree with tep, at least for *thinking conservatives* (thinking liberals, too).'

I'm not sure that Republicans, at least the younger ones, even know what a socialist is anymore.

A gay socialist..a gay *muslim* socialist, now we're getting somewhere.

"a gay *muslim* socialist": cool, where?  I didn't know they came in that colour.

It strikes me as ironic that the personal actions of Americans were most conservative during a period of maximum liberal ascendency (FDR) and most liberal (in the sense of feelings of entitlement) during a period of conservative ascendency (Reagan/ Bush with the triangulator in between).  Ike, where are you?  Come back for another eight years.  In your time we were still maintained some element of personal frugality in a time of prosperity; yet our sense of sobriety didn't stop us from experiencing a deep, though transient love, for sunny, pastel colors.  Most people thought themselves "moderate" and elected Republicans and Democrats who thought they were moderates too.

I know, I know!  All was by no means perfect in the 50's.  If that's your principal reaction, you're definitely a liberal.  If your principal reaction is to remember that time with  a smile, you're a conservative.

The memory of this, via today's well-done David Kirkpatrick piece in the Times , has to send acid

1sernoff has a good point. The '50s had low unemployment, low inflation and decent growth. True, Japan was on its knees, China and India were basket cases and Europe was still recovering, but still, there's something to be said for high savings rates, less bread-and-circus consumption, an absence of serial asset bubbles manufactured by the Fed, and sober financial management in both the public and private realms.