David Brooks’s column earlier this week argued that Mitt Romney was unelectable because he has boarded the sinking ship of the conservative coalition. Ross Douthat thinks that Brooks’s column is “the last word on the subject.” My fellow editors, having endorsed Romney, naturally disagree. But our editorial defends the conservative coalition more than it defends Romney.

The inadequacy of the existing conservative coalition is an argument for expanding it, and perhaps altering it in the process, but not for abandoning it. . . . None of the men running for president has gone very far in showing a new generation how conservative principles might help us meet our present challenges. But as we noted in our editorial endorsing Mitt Romney, uniting the existing conservative coalition is a practical prerequisite for building on it. Even conservatives who favor different candidates should be able to agree with that more important proposition. If Rudolph Giuliani becomes president next year, it will be because he managed to keep pro-life voters in the Republican column. John McCain will not win the presidency, either, without the support of voters concerned about high taxes.

This debate recalls one that took place in the spring of 2000. At the time, some of John McCain’s supporters were arguing for “creative destruction” and saying that the conservative coalition needed to be blown up for victory to be possible in the fall. Brooks was one of those people. At the time, National Review conceded that the McCainiacs had a point: “The existing Repuhlican coalition and a conventionally conservative campaign will not suffice to win a national election. ” But it went on to reject the theory of creative destruction: “Bush can win this election—by making new friends, not betraying old ones.”