Was held yesterday, and a fine time was had by all.

Students from Berry College, Oglethorpe, and Mercer University were impressive in offering their thoughts on the state of contemporary politics. The most interesting--albeit unsurprising--observation was that on all three campuses--two of which could with some accuracy be called "evangelical"--the political energy is apparently focused on Obama. One young man from Mercer opined that the apathetic Republicans on his campus could probably outvote the Obamaniacs, but they couldn’t outwork or out-emote them.

Peter Lawler’s panel on liberalism and conservatism was "fair and balanced." Peter has already offered you the core of his analysis on the warrior and the preacher, both communitarian (and to some degree complementary) alternatives to "creeping (and creepy) libertarianism." Bryan McGraw offered serious doubts as to whether there would be a substantial evangelical drift leftward. Susan McWilliams deployed her inimitable and entertaining version of left Calvinism on behalf of beer-drenched communitarianism (although I have it on pretty good authority than John Calvin himself was a wine-drinker). Matt Franck brought Tocqueville to bear (in a good way) on Liberal Fascism and sorta kinds promised to make a version of his remarks available (eventually) on Bench Memos. The AJC’s Jay Bookman told us that conservatism was the ideological equivalent of an orchid that couldn’t survive outside the hothouse.

The elections panel, chaired by Berry’s Eric Sands, featured Alan Abramowitz telling us, quite persuasively (with numbers and pictures) that the Democrats enjoy a structural advantage this year, that, historically, partisan and conservative Republicans turn out much more reliably than their squishier brethren, that the only chance McCain has this year is to appeal to independents (roughly 10% of the electorate), who in 2006 looked more Democratic than Republican, and that therefore McCain should spend more time being himself than mending fences with the base. Bear in mind that this advice comes from someone who is a very sharp and solid electoral analyst, especially for Demcorats. If all things were equal, that might be sound advice, but McCain has to raise a pile of money, and it ain’t going to come from independents. Jay Cost made the case that McCain’s triumph was the final culmination of the party’s loss of control of its label. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a version of that argument over at his blog sometime soon. As befits a political theorist and student of Lincoln, Jon Schaff argued that individuals and campaigns matter. I hope we’ll see a version of his argument at SDP or elsewhere. Finally, Eric Sands lamented the loss of dignity in contemporary politics, at least in the ominating process. I’m not sure who his guy was or is in the race, but it sounded to me like the lament of a Thompson supporter.

After a fine dinner surrounded by beautiful objets d’art, we reconvened to hear Jonah Goldberg talk about his book. He rehearses the arguments well and wittily. I remain of the opinion that the principal practical benefits to come from his argument will be the problematizing of the word fascism as applied to people like me and the problematizing of the word progressive as applied to people not like me. I think he does a very good job linking pragmatism, progressivism, socialism, and fascism (carefully defined so as not simply to mean "whatever Hitler did"). He also makes a compelling case for the argument that identifying fascism with the right comes above all from the propagandistic efforts of Stalin’s USSR, which had a bone to pick with the nationalist (as opposed to internationalist) left. I’ll have more later, as will Jonah, sometime after he arrives at the next stop on his book tour. In the meantime, you can sample a couple of local reactions.

Update: I neglected to mention that another of the chief virtues of Jonah’s book is that it mentions my place of employment, which hosted this smiley-faced fascistic commencement address, which JG also notes here. Another element that connects my employer to Jonah’s theme is a fellow by the name of James Woodrow, the first Georgian to hold the Ph.D., who happens to have been someone’s uncle.

Update #2: Safely back home in northern South Dakota, Jon Schaff has more.

Here’s what is in effect his concession speech, laying out the challenges we face in a comprehensive and, I think, admirable way.

Although at the moment Huckabee says that he will continue his campaign, I think that he’ll face a lot of pressure to follow Romney’s lead.

Is it good for the GOP for the race to be over so soon? On the one hand, McCain can start preparing and raising money for a general election campaign, adjusting his message and making nice with the appropriate constituencies. On the other hand, this effectively ends news coverage of the Republicans, with everything devoted to the Democrats until someone wins that nomination. Whether this is good for McCain and the GOP depends entirely on the character of the ensuing campaign. If both sides attempt or feel compelled to win ugly, there’s some gain for McCain. If one side plays nice while the other doesn’t, and the good guy wins, that’s bad for the GOP. If the bad guy wins, there’s a small opening for McCain. I suppose that it’s possible that there will be dignity all around, which I don’t think helps McCain.

As you all know, the Ashbrook Center always has a serious presence at the annual CPAC conference in Washington. The same is true this year. Roger Beckett, Marv Krinsky, and a number of our students are there. We will give the Ashbrook Award tomorrow night.

But the most interesting thing I want to report to you is this: Mitt Romney just set Senator McCain up to get the most positive reception he could from such a conservative audience. Romney ended his speech ten minutes ago. The critical part of the speech is that he’s withdrawing from the race and effectively endorsing McCain. Thereby, Romney is, in my opinion, setting himself up to be seriously considered for VP. He may have out-clevered the clever Huckabee.

CNN is reporting that Romney is suspending his campaign. He’s expected to make the formal announcement at this afternoon’s session of the CPAC conference.

There’s nothing terribly surprising about this, of course, but it’s sad nonetheless.

We all know the standard curmudgeon GOP line is that youth talk but they don’t vote. Yes, that’s generally true. But youth talk is important. Young people develop habits and opinions in their youth. Right now, we’ve got a whole lot of young people developing bad habits and opinions by jumping on the Obama Express. Even if Obama doesn’t pull off the upset that the dark side of my soul longs to see (as I know HRC is the better candidate to run against in November and the better President if we must suffer a Dem) the Obama Express is still going to be there and then benefit Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in general for a long time to come.

Duane Patterson noted something incredible last night that’s only bolstered when you consider the last paragraph of Richard Reeb’s post on the Remedy. The combined age of the five folks in the camera shot with John McCain last night was something like 332 years old! Everyone (excepting McCain’s lovely wife) was grey. (And in another thread below Clint points out that Mrs. McCain is hopelessly "out of style"--though I admit this shows that he knows more about women’s fashion than I.) When you look at Obama’s supporters on the other hand, you see people in their 20s. You see life, exuberance and, yes, also inexperience. But Americans will forgive inexperience before they forgive crotchetiness. They will, anyway, unless they’re given a very good reason not to forgive the inexperience.

John McCain obviously can’t make himself younger. His wife would look foolish if she attempted to look more "hip." As old as his mother is, I thought she looked impressive and alert and her recent interviews demonstrate that her mental faculties are in no way diminished by age--to say nothing of her spirit. This bodes well for John. He comes from strong stock. John McCain will not get the same kind of youth support that Barack Obama gets. Indeed, he ought not want to inspire that kind of reflexive, unthinking and insipid prostration.

But all young people are not twits. There is plenty to be tilled from the fertile garden of thinking and emerging-in-intelligence youth. John McCain can start by reminding us that he, too, was once young. He can talk about character in a way that inspires rather than chastises. His story is an inspiring one. He has not used it to as much good effect as he might--partly, I think, out of a sense of modesty and partly out of a (sensible) desire not to bring up the whole Vietnam debate and, thereby, hearken back to the debates of the 1960s (yet again). There is some danger in this, I admit. But the debate that Obama wants to engage is, for all his youth and inexperience, a very old one. This can be demonstrated. The truth is that Obama is nothing new under the sun. And he can be made to look very foolish for thinking that he is. Young people are always insecure about the possibility that they look foolish. Don’t offend them by telling them that they are foolish--but point things out that lead them to this conclusion on their own.

At some point, while I was watching the returns last night and listening to the pundits as they chattered about the division in the Republican party when compared to the unity of the Democrats, I began to ask myself if this whole narrative of Republican division isn’t just a bit too tidy. The division itself cannot be denied. Just look at the map of many colors and you can see it. And it’s true that no single Republican candidate has been able to generate the level of enthusiasm that Obama or, even, the Clinton Machine has produced. The standard talking point today (and also most of yesterday) from every MSM pundit I’ve heard speak on the subject, is how Democrats can’t decide because they "like both choices" and Republicans can’t decide because they don’t really like any of them.

That analysis is cute, neat, (in its way) true, and completely beside the point.

Today the question we all ought to be asking ourselves is not so much "Who is John McCain?" or "Who is Mike Huckabee?" or "Who is Mitt Romney?" Today we ought to be asking ourselves, "Who are the Republicans?" What are we all about? How are we different from the opposition? Those who see no difference or are inclined to be petulant because "their guy" didn’t get (or appears unlikely to get) the nod, need to focus--HARD--on this question. There’s a huge difference and the patchwork quilt of our electoral map last night is the first, most obvious and perhaps most important evidence of this difference.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats that our division demonstrates is the degree to which Republicans (and especially, perhaps, conservatives) are inclined to deliberate (and, yes, fight) about our principles. Hillary and Obama spar . . . but about what? Who’s the most authentic candidate for female voters? Who deserves the Hispanic vote? Who can get the biggest payoff for the labor unions or the old folks? There’s never any talk about the purposes and the ends of government. That’s all assumed. The only time you’ll hear the word "should" is when they’re leveling some insult at a Neanderthal Republican who is not yet on board with their program. To be a Democrat today is to acknowledge that you believe in the "End of Political Thought"--or, to be less generous, that you don’t believe in thought at all. The only thought is that given to the means to achieve pre-determined ends. That’s why their politics is almost always more wonkish and less interesting and fascinating only when it is more Machiavellian and internal.

Here are CNN’s results page and its main election page, with delegate counts. You can read the summary stories here, here, here, and here. You can read analysis here, here, and here.

Going forward, McCain looks unbeatable. He’d have to self-destruct.

I’m also still not buying the argument that Huckabee is preventing Romney from consolidating the conservative opposition to McCain. First of all, in only four states that McCain won was the combined Romney-Huckabee vote total higher. In two (California and Delaware), Romney finished a relatively distant second; in the other two (Missouri and Oklahoma), Huckabee finished a close second. It seems to me at least as plausible to say that Romney harmed Huckabee as to say that Mike hurt Mitt.

Second, those who make this argument assume that "conservatism" is so salient for voters that their preferences are simply transferable from one "conservative" to another. Might not character or particular issues matter more? Indeed, isn’t it McCain’s stance on particular issues--as opposed to his overall orientation--that leads some to declare he’s not a conservative?

Third, note that in many places--California, for example--McCain gets a significant portion of the "conservative vote." To be sure, in California he lost the "very conservative" vote (roughly a quarter of the Republican electorate) quite substantially, but even if all the "very conservative" Huckabee supporters had gone over to Romney (a totally implausible scenario in any event), McCain still would have won...and handily. It’s more likely that on some issues (e.g., the war) or some dimensions (e.g., character or leadership) or some considerations (e.g., electability), some conservatives are going to choose McCain over Romney. Taking Huckabee out of the picture doesn’t change any of this. And, to be fair, taking Romney out of the picture wouldn’t enable Huckabee to climb Mount McCain.

Finally, if you look at the distribution of the self-identified Republican vote in the states McCain won, there are four (CA, IL, MO, and OK) in which his percentage of the Republican vote was lower than the combined Romney-Huckabee proportion. McCain did worst in states--Missouri and Oklahoma--where Huckabee came in a close second. Indeed, if all these states had closed primaries, Huckabee would have won Missouri and tied McCain in Oklahoma. And the only way Romney could have won in California and Illinois is by taking an implausibly high share (75%+ in CA, 85%+ in IL) of the Huckabee vote. In other words, McCain did quite well among Republicans, winning outright majorities in three of his states and effectively insurmountable pluralities in three others. In the other two, he would have tied Huckabee or finished a close third behind Huckabee and Romney.

I’m far from arguing that McCain is the perfect Republican or conservative candidate, but there is no one in this race who is doing so much better as to be the Republican or conservative.

...well, not quite. But it makes you wonder what would have happened had he won in SC. It’s too early to know who actually will win most of the southern states, but Huck is running impressively everywhere. I shouldn’t write this down, but I think he wins Georgia and conceivably Tennessee, not to mention Alabama. (And he’s not far off in OK and MO.) McCain’s showing is less than spectacular almost everywhere, even NY and AZ. Romney is not really shining anywhere, but there’s still hope for a Missouri and California combo. Once again, it’s the type of night that will help McCain, although he certainly doing worse than (at least I) expected. Will he feel chastened? You know the answer.

1. Obama is now clearly ahead of Hillary nationwide. So now she’ll be lucky to get a tie today. I wish I had bet the plantation on the collapse. Will Bill Clinton be able to salvage his wife’s campaign? I, for one, hope so.

2. Romney closed a little nationwide and in particular states but not enough to make any difference. Geogia is basically a three-way tie.

3. From the point of view of people such as myself, Julie, and Joe who want to chasten McCain, the Georgia situation provides a stategic dilemma. I’m too manly to share with you the soul-searching that produced my final choice. And because it is, in truth, nothing more dramatic than a coin-flip, I’ll spare you the burden of being guided by that choice.

4. If you come to Oglethorpe tomorrow, you can hear my ten-minute talk on the Warrior and the Preacher. It tentatively includes this paragraph: "The weakness of the warrior--and this is the theme of many a Clint Eastwood movie--is that they prefer war to peace. So they’re all for sacrifice even when it would be counterproductive to require it. McCain was against the Bush tax cuts because they’d be unpatriotic in time of war. Now he’s finally for the cuts--in a way--because they’d stimulate the economy. It doesn’t seem to occur to the warrior that Bush’s pro-family tax cuts might have actually improved the ordinary lives of struggling parents. And McCain’s also a hawk when it comes to budget cuts, of course, because they usually require that someone sacrifice, and that can never be bad."

Joe’s very interesting dialog with himself (see below) about what he’s going to do today has inspired one of my own. I think I’ve learned a lesson from this election. Some months ago, I looked at the unsatisfying field before me and asked myself, "Which one of these guys has the best chance of winning in November and is the least disagreeable to me?" I concluded--we now know incorrectly--that this guy was Rudy. (Though I still think he’d have done well if he could have pulled through the primary.) All the available evidence--including polls--supported the notion that he was our best bet. Seeing the alternative, and admiring Rudy’s personal toughness, made me sanguine about the prospect of a Giuliani-led ticket even though I have strong differences with him on many issues. But now I’ve stopped asking myself who has the best chance in November. I no longer think I’m wise enough to know the answer to that question.

At this point, our leading choice seems to be a prickly fellow with positions firmly set and, quite often, opposite mine. Our other choice is a guy whose positions might generously be called "wobbly." He is not a prickly fellow but he’s also not particularly endearing. (I won’t go through my long critique of Romney’s missing love handles again.) On the other hand, when you look at his executive experience and you look at his many accomplishments and you compare them to McCain’s . . . McCain doesn’t look so good. Romney is standing by what he says he believes now . . . and he’s shown an admirable amount of determination that I’d really like to see applied to our foreign policy. I think he’ll be like a terrier with a bone when he sinks his teeth into the war on terror. Further, the looming prospect of Obama and the energy that ticket will bring with it makes me quite skeptical about the argument that McCain can carry independents. So I’m disregarding it.

That said, I have a very strong feeling that nothing I or the numerous outraged conservatives say about John McCain, is going to keep him from carrying the day. And, if he does, I’m not going to give my vote to the Democrats by sitting out. On the other hand, it’s not yet clear that this is inevitable and, more important, I think Romney would be a better President.

I’ve been too depressed lately (okay, really just too d--- busy) to post much lately, but on top of all the chatter that the Reagan Era is well and truly over, comes the news that Bobby Knight is retiring from college basketball. Truly the end of an era. Knight was the General Patton of college basketball coaches.

The New York Times celebrates this decision, described here. The upshot is that, in the absence of any positive legislative action, the state of New York is required to give effect to marriages that are legally performed in other jurisdictions.

The court also acknowledges a line of precedents that prohibit state acknowledgement of marriages that are not in accord with "natural law." But in this case:

The natural law exception also is not applicable. That exception has generally been limited to marriages involving polygamy or incest or marriages “offensive to the public sense of morality to a degree regarded generally with abhorrence” and that cannot be said here.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. puts his finger on the stylistic differences between the Clinton and Obama campaigns. A snippet:

The larger difference between Clinton and Obama is in their respective theories of change. Implicit in the Clinton narrative, as she put it on the stump last weekend, is the idea that "making change is hard." Only someone with carefully laid plans and the toughness to go toe-to-toe with the Republicans in the daily and weekly Washington slog can hope to achieve reform.

Obama agrees to an extent. "I know how hard change is," he says. But he promises to transcend the old fights -- the liberation narrative again -- by building a "bottom-up" movement to create inexorable pressure for reform that would draw in even Republicans.

"Good intentions are not enough," he said in his Wilmington speech. They need to be "fortified with political will or political power." Obama marries a softer rhetorical line on Republicans with a more far-reaching and activist analysis of how change happens. He thus manages to go to Clinton’s right and left at the same time.

That’s why Obama is on the move in a way that worries Clinton’s lieutenants. She promises toughness, competence, clarity and experience in a year when many Democrats are seeking something closer to salvation.

One of the politicians who spoke before Obama at the rally, Delaware state Treasurer Jack Markell, cited the New Testament letter to the Hebrews in which Saint Paul spoke of "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It was a revealing moment: While Clinton wages a campaign, Obama is preaching a revival.

Here, for what it’s worth, is the introductory speech Dionne cited in his last paragraph--a fine and "stirring" example of the religion of humanity Obama’s presence incites people to preach.

And here is yet another example of the pseudo-religious sentiment Obama inspires:

To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant. We must allow ourselves to believe in Obama, not blindly or unquestioningly as we might believe in some demagogue or figurehead but as we believe in the comfort we take in our families, in the pleasure of good company, in the blessings of peace and liberty, in any thing that requires us to put our trust in the best part of ourselves and others. That kind of belief is a revolutionary act. It holds the power, in time, to overturn and repair all the damage that our fear has driven us to inflict on ourselves and the world.