I’m more than half-expecting Obama to win this one. Why? One reason is that I’m hearing a lot of conservatives say that Romney is going to win, and in a way that makes me think they’re whistling past the graveyard. There’s something about overconfidence that makes me run in the other direction.
I’d love to be wrong on this, but I think conservative need to think, “What do we do now that Obama has another four years and, as he famously said to Vladimir Putin, ‘more flexibility’?” It could be a long day tomorrow.
Consider the possibilities. ObamaCare is cemented into place. The Supreme Court will tilt left for 20-30 years. If Ohio goes to Obama, the the art of buying elections will enter new chapters involving industrial planning. Freedom of religion will be reduced to freedom of worship (check your religiously based convictions at the door once you leave church, OK?) through the ObamaCare abortion/contraceptive mandate. Class envy will be vindicated.
Will there be a place for political action in the conservative world? Or will it be best to “go Amish,” and seek to build a retreat from an overly politicized country? Or will conservatives, in the best British tradition, excel as the party for giving an alternative justification for a country in which politics infiltrates everything? Perhaps we’ve already come to one of those points, for surely even a President Romney is unlikely to unleash a massive rollback of the power of politics.
It may be a long night–and even longer week.
First published by the Michigan View