An e-mail:

Tell me it will be alright, K-Lo …
I’m not anti-Huck, but I am very pro-Republican. Doesn’t everyone know that we have to win this election? I’m too young to know much about the this Reagan coalition stuff, but it pains me to think that we can’t come together as a party and at least acknowledge that the other guy would be worse.
Can’t we just be proud of the fact that there is such variety among us conservatives and agree to work that out in 2009?
I’m having trouble thinking about the future of the party, and about what it would mean to have any of the Republican candidates as president, because I’m so blinded by the fact that a President Edwards, or Obama, or Clinton, combined with a Democratic Congress, would surely mean ruin for Iraq and woe here at home. Would social conservatives really stay at home if Rudy won the nomination? Do we really dislike the fact that Romney is Mormon? Do we all really dislike McCain enough to prevent him from winning? To hell with Rudy’s nominally pro-choice views! To hell with Mormonism! To hell with McCain-Feingold!
We have to win this war, and to do so we have to win this election!

I wouldn’t put aside the Constitution or anything just yet (or ever)…. It’s a First Principles kinda moment. What do conservatives believe? How much do we want to fight for those principles? Who will represent them?