James Poulos's blog

This is the first of a two-day discussion between TheNextRight.com (Soren Dayton and Jon Henke) and Culture11.com (James Poulos and Conor Friedersdorf) about the Best Case and Worst Case scenario for the Right in 2008.  Conor Friedersdorf's contribution is here.  James Poulos continues.

The best-case scenario for conservatives this election season is a Presidential blowout and a gridlocked Congress. If McCain wins in a landslide (if! I said if!), the political and philosophical reappraisal of conservatism and the GOP that's already underway will continue under conditions of relative calm. Even a major McCain win will not fool anyone that Bush's main political legacy is anything beside sweeping and profound disappointment among Americans generally and conservatives in particular. A huge vote for McCain wouldn't be a mandate for either him or the party; it would be an awkward plea for a national pause. For conservatives, the inevitable internecine conflict that will put a McCain presidency on pause will at least avoid the special kind of petty panic and bitterness that accompanies a narrow loss. And a big win would let McCain spring a one-term pledge on the country without looking like a guy without the support to attempt another four years.

As for Congress, conservatives would benefit most under a McCain blowout from something approaching a legislative freeze. The House and the Senate are reeling drunk from the bailout, and, based on McCain's track record of legislation, in most cases we're all better off without his input today. A gridlocked Congress unable to do much except kick current laws down the field would give America a breather and conservatives a much-needed opportunity to reorganize a coherent agenda without more of the panic that accompanies the likelihood of a liberal legislative juggernaut. Because let's face it: no matter what happens, conservatives in Congress won't be running the show come November.

But this picture seems fanciful today. Conservatives will really want to know how an Obama blowout and a seized-up Congress could also make for a best-case scenario. Simple: a narrow McCain win or loss will keep Republicans locked in a death struggle over the true meaning of conservatism and the identity of the party. So long as Congress doesn't flip completely and utterly into Democratic hands, a landslide for Obama will do conservatives much more good than harm. Without an all-powerful Democratic House and Senate behind him—or, more likely, in front of him, pulling him along — a President Obama (even with an apparent mandate) would be high on inspiration and togetherness but low on power and ambition.

Hemmed in by the realities of an overstretched and strained economy, intense yet delicate military commitments abroad, and the broad but vague longing among the American people for a simple change in political tone, Obama would function largely as a figurehead — something conservatives wary of executive Bridezillas could appreciate. Liberals would get all the catharsis they wanted without really being able to effect much substantive change. The left would get the healing, the right would keep the hope. And as the Obama administration became consumed in the patient, laborious, and incremental task of leading a nation unified mostly in exasperation and exhaustion, conservatives would be able to clear their minds and clean their house — their most important task of all.

James Poulos is the political editor of Culture11.