Peggy Noonan on Buckley

February 29, 2008

He was sui generis, wasn't he? The complete American original, a national treasure, a man whose energy was a kind of optimism, and whose attitude toward life, even when things seemed to others bleak, was summed up in something he said to a friend: "Despair is a mortal sin."

I am not sure conservatives feel despair at Bill Buckley's leaving--he was 82 and had done great work in a lifetime filled with pleasure--but I know they, and many others, are sad, and shaken somehow. On Wednesday, after word came that he had left us, in a television studio where I'd gone to try and speak of some of his greatness, a celebrated liberal academic looked at me stricken, and said he'd just heard the news. "I can't imagine a world without Bill Buckley in it," he said. I said, "Oh, that is exactly it."

Corbis

Feb. 21, 1983, Washington D.C. -- President Reagan and William F. Buckley Jr. laugh heartily at a reception for the opening of the Washington office of the Naitonal Review.

It is. What a space he filled.

It is commonplace to say that Bill Buckley brought American conservatism into the mainstream. That's not quite how I see it. To me he came along in the middle of the last century and reminded demoralized American conservatism that it existed. That it was real, that it was in fact a majority political entity, and that it was inherently mainstream. This was after the serious drubbing inflicted by Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal and the rise of modern liberalism. Modern liberalism at that point was a real something, a palpable movement formed by FDR and continued by others. Opposing it was . . . what exactly? Robert Taft? The ghost of Calvin Coolidge? Buckley said in effect, Well, there's something known as American conservatism, though it does not even call itself that. It's been calling itself "voting Republican" or "not liking the New Deal." But it is a very American approach to life, and it has to do with knowing that the government is not your master, that America is good, that freedom is good and must be defended, and communism is very, very bad.

He explained, remoralized, brought together those who saw it as he did, and began the process whereby American conservatism came to know itself again. And he did it primarily through a magazine, which he with no modesty decided was going to be the central and most important organ of resurgent conservatism. National Review would be highly literate, philosophical, witty, of the moment, with an élan, a teasing quality that made you feel you didn't just get a subscription, you joined something. You entered a world of thought.

I thought it beautiful and inspiring that he was open to, eager for, friendships from all sides, that even though he cared passionately about political questions, politics was not all, cannot be all, that people can be liked for their essence, for their humor and good nature and intelligence, for their attitude toward life itself. He and his wife, Pat, were friends with lefties and righties, from National Review to the Paris Review. It was moving too that his interests were so broad, that he could go from an appreciation of the metaphors of Norman Mailer to essays on classical music to an extended debate with his beloved friend the actor David Niven on the best brands of peanut butters. When I saw him last he was in a conversation with the historian Paul Johnson on the relative merits of the work of the artist Raeburn.

His broad-gaugedness, his refusal to be limited, seemed to me a reflection in part of a central conservative tenet, as famously expressed by Samuel Johnson. "How small of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure." When you have it right about laws and kings, and what life is, then your politics become grounded in the facts of life. And once they are grounded, you don't have to hold to them so desperately. You can relax and have fun. Just because you're serious doesn't mean you're grim.

* * *

Buckley was a one-man refutation of Hollywood's idea of a conservative. He was rising in the 1950s and early '60s, and Hollywood's idea of a conservative was still Mr. Potter, the nasty old man of "It's a Wonderful Life," who would make a world of grubby Pottersvilles if he could, who cared only about money and the joy of bullying idealists. Bill Buckley's persona, as the first famous conservative of the modern media age, said no to all that. Conservatives are brilliant, capacious, full of delight at the world and full of mischief, too. That's what he was. He upended old clichés.

This was no small thing, changing this template. Ronald Reagan was the other who changed it, by being a sunny man, a happy one. They were friends, admired each other, had two separate and complementary roles. Reagan was in the game of winning votes, of persuading, of leading a political movement that catapulted him to two terms as governor of California, the nation's biggest state, at a time when conservatives were seemingly on the defensive but in retrospect were rising to new heights. He would speak to normal people and persuade them of the efficacy of conservative solutions to pressing problems. Buckley's job was not reaching on-the-ground voters, or reaching voters at all, and his attitude toward his abilities in that area was reflected in his merry answer when asked what he would do if he won the mayoralty of New York. "Demand a recount," he famously replied. His role was speaking to those thirsting for a coherent worldview, for an intellectual and moral attitude grounded in truth. He provided intellectual ballast. Inspired in part by him, voters went on to support Reagan. Both could have existed without the other, but Buckley's work would have been less satisfying, less realized, without Reagan and his presidency, and Reagan's leadership would have been more difficult, and also somehow less satisfying, without Buckley.

* * *

I share here a fear. It is not that the conservative movement is ending, that Bill's death is the period on a long chapter. The house he helped build had--has--many mansions. Conservatism will endure if it is rooted in truth, and in the truths of life. It is.

It is rather that with the loss of Bill Buckley we are, as a nation, losing not only a great man. When Jackie Onassis died, a friend of mine who knew her called me and said, with such woe, "Oh, we are losing her kind." He meant the elegant, the cultivated, the refined. I thought of this with Bill's passing, that we are losing his kind--people who were deeply, broadly educated in great universities when they taught deeply and broadly, who held deep views of life and the world and art and all the things that make life more delicious and more meaningful. We have work to do as a culture in bringing up future generations that are so well rounded, so full and so inspiring.

Bill Buckley lived a great American life. His heroism was very American--the individualist at work in the world, the defender of great creeds and great beliefs going forth with spirit, style and joy. May we not lose his kind. For now, "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels take thee to thy rest."

Lexington: The Buckley effect

I really enjoyed reading Buckley. I believe I read most of the Blackford Oakes spy novels, my favorite being See You Later, Alligator.

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Lexington

The Buckley effect

Feb 28th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The grand old man of American conservatism died on February 27th

Illustration by Kevin Kallaugher

FEW intellectuals change the political weather. Even the most successful—an Arthur Schlesinger, say, or a J.K. Galbraith—usually tilt into the prevailing wind and enjoy the sail. William F. Buckley, who died in his study this week, aged 82, was a weather-changer.

When Mr Buckley decided to make his name as a conservative intellectual the phrase was an oxymoron. Dwight Eisenhower's Republican Party was as adamantly middle-of-the-road as it was middle-brow. Ike did not take it as an insult when people said of him that “his smile was his philosophy”.

At that time, America's tiny band of right-wing activists included a remarkable number of crackpots. Kent Courtney, the founder of the Conservative Society of America, accused Barry Goldwater of being “tainted by socialism”. The John Birch Society worried that Eisenhower was an agent of international communism. Lionel Trilling was right when he pronounced, in 1950, that “liberalism is not only the dominant, but even the sole, intellectual tradition” in the United States.

Mr Buckley devoted his life to changing this. He founded the National Review for the conservative intelligentsia at the tender age of 29. And he turned himself into a one-man opinion machine—tossing off articles and books with ease. All in all he wrote about 55. They included sailing memoirs and spy novels.

Mr Buckley famously said that the purpose of the National Review was to stand “athwart history, yelling ‘Stop’”. But in fact he did more than just stand athwart. He helped to drive the crazies out of the movement. He persuaded a disparate band of enthusiasts—free-marketers and social conservatives, anti-communists and American traditionalists—to band together against the liberal-collectivist foe. And he attracted a brilliant group of intellectuals to the conservative cause, including, for a while, such unlikely people as Garry Wills and Joan Didion, both (now) liberal writers.

What made Mr Buckley such a weather-changer? Money helped: his father was a multimillionaire and the young Buckley tapped both his personal wealth and his family's connections to finance his new magazine. But the young man also brought a rare collection of qualities to his self-appointed task.

The first was an appetite for bomb throwing. Just as radical artists like nothing better than baiting the bourgeoisie, Mr Buckley was at his happiest baiting the liberal establishment. His first book, “God and Man at Yale”, which he published shortly after graduating, took aim not just at his alma mater but at the academic elite in general.

The book turned him into a national sensation, with students queuing around the block to buy it and grandees such as McGeorge Bundy denouncing its author as a “twisted and ignorant young man”. It also linked two of the themes that were to drive forward the rise of the conservative movement—opposition to Keynesian economics (the man part of the book's title) and dislike of secular intellectuals (the God part).

Mr Buckley's second quality was his patrician style. He was a leading adornment of the establishment he liked to excoriate. He sailed his own boat and holidayed in St Tropez and St Moritz. He liked to hang out with such liberal luminaries as J.K. Galbraith (in the local book store in Gstaad, where they both went skiing, they would battle to get their books the best spot in the window). His wife, Patricia, was one of New York's leading socialites. Mr Buckley managed to be every liberal's favourite conservative as well as every conservative's favourite conservative.

Mr Buckley put both qualities on display in his television appearances. As the host of “Firing Line” from 1966 to 1999 he pioneered a type of televised political mud-wrestling that has since become tedious but was once regarded as ground-breaking. His style was all his own—he spoke in languid sentences, adorned with erudite allusions and polysyllabic flourishes, in an accent that had a touch of English-aristo. But he was not above raw populism. He was infamous for using the word “queer” on television (during a debate with Gore Vidal).

This belies the third thing that made him important—an inner core of seriousness. Mr Buckley was in it for more than the champagne. He was a committed Catholic, as were many of those around him at the Review. He felt that modern liberalism was corroding the foundation of Western civilisation, no less. For him, first things always came first.

Bill's children

Mr Buckley lived long enough to see the movement that he founded not just flourishing but ascendant. He saw two avowedly conservative presidents in the White House: Ronald Reagan, who was a close friend, and George W. Bush, who describes today's conservatives as “Bill's children”. He saw his fellow conservatives create a network of institutions from think-tanks to rival conservative magazines such as the Weekly Standard. The lone prophet became the father of a new establishment.

But it was not clear that he was entirely happy with the direction of the movement. He grew disillusioned with the Bush administration and even said publicly that, if America were a parliamentary system, Mr Bush would have resigned. He was uncomfortable with the Iraq war. He engaged in a fierce public debate with Norman Podhoretz over whether Iraq is, as Mr Podhoretz claims, “an amazing success”.

Indeed, Mr Buckley's death comes at a time when the movement he created is at one of its lowest points in decades. Conservatives are uncertain where to go after the Bush-Cheney years. They are showing signs of intellectual exhaustion. And the crackpots, once exiled, are beginning to define conservatism once again. The movement has never needed a new William F. Buckley more than it does today.

Copyright © 2008 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

William F Buckley, RIP

William F Buckley, Jr. died today.

In a strange coincidence, I awoke this morning with a specific idea for more political commentary to post here. My idea was to post Kurt Vonnegut's In a Manner that Must Shame God Himself, Vonnegut's opinion and commentary on the 1972 Republican convention. He refers to two political parties, Winners and Losers.

An excerpt:

"There is a very witty winner, a millionaire named William F Buckley , Jr." I would go on, "who appears regularly in newspapers and on television. He bickers amusingly with people who think that Winners should help Losers more than they do.

"He has a nearly permanent and always patronizing rictus when debating."

As a visitor from another planet, I would have nothing to lose socially in supposing that Buckley himself did not know the secret message of his smile. I would then guess at the message: "Yes, oh yes, my dear man - I understand what you have said so clumsily. But you know in your heart what every Winner knows : that one must behave heartlessly towards Losers if one wants to survive."

That may not really be the message in the Buckley smile. But I guarantee you it was the monolithic belief that underlay the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida in 1972.

All the rest was hokum.

Buckley was an icon. A nice article from the the NYT says:

Mr. Buckley’s greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal post-World War II America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, and saw his dreams fulfilled when Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office.

To Mr. Buckley’s enormous delight, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the historian, termed him “the scourge of liberalism.”

Another article excerpt from the WSJ:

NEW YORK -- William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82.

His assistant Linda Bridges said Mr. Buckley was found dead by his cook at his home in Stamford, Conn. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.

Editor, columnist, novelist, debater, TV talk show star of "Firing Line," harpsichordist, trans-oceanic sailor and even a good-natured loser in a New York mayor's race, Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, the National Review.

Seven Steps to Heaven

Well, it's been close to a week since I last posted and, although I've had no complaints, I thought I might post again with a bit of personal commentary.

Over the past week or so, I've been (somewhat) consumed with the fulfillment of various tasks and duties personal, professional and moral in nature.

I'm looking forward to finishing Mary Lois' book, Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree. Bobby Womack wrote a lyric, "the things I've lost along the way have taken a lot out of me", and that line has resonated with me over the years. A lot of the things that I've personally lost along the way happen to reside in Fairhope and I'm sure I will enjoy revisiting Fairhope by way of Meet Me.

Finally, after a long week, I was driving home tonight and happened to listen to Miles Davis' Seven Steps to Heaven. Two tracks that pretty much anyone should appreciate immediately are the title track (track two) and So Near So Far (track four.) This might be my favorite Miles Album other than Kind of Blue.

This ain't no smooth jazz, this here is straight ahead jazz!

Cheers!

Had a pretty nice evening...

Wake Forest beats Duke 86-73
Duke's starting 5 all fouled out. When was the last time that happened?
Anyone see my post from January 29th? Maybe I was a little premature in my dismissive comments concerning the current season.

Found something to read...

...and it kind of takes me back...

Not quite sure what to read....

The unhappiest man in New York....

Non-currrent commentary on current affairs.

"When we look back into the past, we recognize a moment in time which was decisive, at which the pattern of our lives changed, a moment at which we moved irrevocably off in a new direction. The change may be a result of planning or accident; we may leave happiness or ruins behind us and advance to a different happiness or more thorough ruin; but there is no going back. The moment may be just that, a second in which a wheel is turned, a look exchanged, a sentence spoken – or it may be a long afternoon, a week, a season, during which the issue is in doubt, in which the wheel is turned a hundred times, the small accumulating accidents permitted to happen."

For___________, it was_________________.

Irwin Shaw

Peggy Noonan sure hates Hillary

Man, that Peggy Noonan sure hates Hillary. She writes 'What I really mean is they see her as the Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction": "I won't be ignored, Dan!" '


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From the Wall Street Journal.

DECLARATIONS

Can Mrs. Clinton Lose?

By PEGGY NOONAN
February 8, 2008

If Hillary Clinton loses, does she know how to lose? What will that be, if she loses? Will she just say, "I concede" and go on vacation at a friend's house on an island, and then go back to the Senate and wait?

Is it possible she could be so normal? Politicians lose battles, it's part of what they do, win and lose. But she does not know how to lose. Can she lose with grace? But she does grace the way George W. Bush does nuance.

She often talks about how tough she is. She has fought "the Republican attack machine" that has tried to "stop" her, "end" her, and she knows "how to fight them." She is preoccupied to an unusual degree with toughness. A man so preoccupied would seem weak. But a woman obsessed with how tough she is just may be lethal.

Does her sense of toughness mean that every battle in which she engages must be fought tooth and claw, door to door? Can she recognize the line between burly combat and destructive, never-say-die warfare? I wonder if she is thinking: What will it mean if I win ugly? What if I lose ugly? What will be the implications for my future, the party's future? What will black America, having seen what we did in South Carolina, think forever of me and the party if I do low things to stop this guy on the way to victory? Can I stop, see the lay of the land, imitate grace, withdraw, wait, come back with a roar down the road? Life is long. I am not old. Or is that a reverie she could never have? What does it mean if she could never have it?

We know she is smart. Is she wise? If it comes to it, down the road, can she give a nice speech, thank her supporters, wish Barack Obama well, and vow to campaign for him?

It either gets very ugly now, or we will see unanticipated--and I suspect professionally saving--grace.

I ruminate in this way because something is happening. Mrs. Clinton is losing this thing. It's not one big primary, it's a rolling loss, a daily one, an inch-by-inch deflation. The trends and indices are not in her favor. She is having trouble raising big money, she's funding her campaign with her own wealth, her moral standing within her own party and among her own followers has been dragged down, and the legacy of Clintonism tarnished by what Bill Clinton did in South Carolina. Unfavorable primaries lie ahead. She doesn't have the excitement, the great whoosh of feeling that accompanies a winning campaign. The guy from Chicago who was unknown a year ago continues to gain purchase, to move forward. For a soft little innocent, he's played a tough and knowing inside/outside game.

The day she admitted she'd written herself a check for $5 million, Obama's people crowed they'd just raised $3 million. But then his staff is happy. They're all getting paid.

Political professionals are leery of saying, publicly, that she is losing, because they said it before New Hampshire and turned out to be wrong. Some of them signaled their personal weariness with Clintonism at that time, and fear now, as they report, to look as if they are carrying an agenda. One part of the Clinton mystique maintains: Deep down journalists think she's a political Rasputin who will not be dispatched. Prince Yusupov served him cupcakes laced with cyanide, emptied a revolver, clubbed him, tied him up and threw him in a frozen river. When he floated to the surface they found he'd tried to claw his way from under the ice. That is how reporters see Hillary.

And that is a grim and over-the-top analogy, which I must withdraw. What I really mean is they see her as the Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction": "I won't be ignored, Dan!"

* * *

Mr. Obama's achievement on Super Tuesday was solid and reinforced trend lines. The popular vote was a draw, the delegate count a rough draw, but he won 13 states, and when you look at the map he captured the middle of the country from Illinois straight across to Idaho, with a second band, in the northern Midwest, of Minnesota and North Dakota. He won Missouri and Connecticut, in Mrs. Clinton's backyard. He won the Democrats of the red states.

On the wires Wednesday her staff was all but conceding she is not going to win the next primaries. Her superdelegates are coming under pressure that is about to become unrelenting. It was easy for party hacks to cleave to Mrs Clinton when she was inevitable. Now Mr. Obama's people are reportedly calling them saying, Your state voted for me and so did your congressional district. Are you going to jeopardize your career and buck the wishes of the people back home?

Mrs. Clinton is stoking the idea that Mr. Obama is too soft to withstand the dread Republican attack machine. (I nod in tribute to all Democrats who have succeeded in removing the phrase "Republican and Democratic attack machines" from the political lexicon. Both parties have them.) But Mr. Obama will not be easy for Republicans to attack. He will be hard to get at, hard to address. There are many reasons, but a primary one is that the fact of his race will freeze them. No one, no candidate, no party, no heavy-breathing consultant, will want to cross any line--lines that have never been drawn, that are sure to be shifting and not always visible--in approaching the first major-party African-American nominee for president of the United States.

* * *

He is the brilliant young black man as American dream. No consultant, no matter how opportunistic and hungry, will think it easy--or professionally desirable--to take him down in a low manner. If anything, they've learned from the Clintons in South Carolina what that gets you. (I add that yes, there are always freelance mental cases, who exist on both sides and are empowered by modern technology. They'll make their YouTubes. But the mad are ever with us, and this year their work will likely stay subterranean.)

With Mr. Obama the campaign will be about issues. "He'll raise your taxes." He will, and I suspect Americans may vote for him anyway. But the race won't go low.

Mrs. Clinton would be easier for Republicans. With her cavalcade of scandals, they'd be delighted to go at her. They'd get medals for it. Consultants would get rich on it.

The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it's fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He's not Bambi, he's bulletproof.

The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented--"He's too young, he's never run anything, he's not fully baked"--the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it.

The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell.

Romney throws in the towel..

Breaking reports indicate Mit Romney is "suspending" his presidential campaign.
According to text of his forthcoming speech, he says:

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.''

So. A vote for Obama or Hillary is s surrender to terror? I don't think so.

Peggy Noonan's commentary on Hillary vs. Obama.

As noted previously, my choice of referring to Senator Clinton by her Christian name and Senator Obama by his surname is not indicative of anything, just as it never meant anything that Mile Davis was always referred to as "Miles" and John Coltrane was always referred to as "Coltrane" or simply, "Trane"
DECLARATIONS

A Rebellion and an Awkward Embrace

By PEGGY NOONAN

February 1, 2008; Page W14

In the most exciting and confounding election cycle of my lifetime, Rudy Giuliani, the Prince of the City, is out because he was about to lose New York, John Edwards is out, the Clintons are fighting for their historical reputations, and the stalwart conservative New York Post has come out strong and stinging for Barack Obama. If you had asked me in December if I would write that sentence in February, I would have said: Um, no.

If there is a part of you that loves politics, loves the sheer brunt force of it, the great game of it, you are waking up each morning with a spring in your step. "What happened last night?"

Both races continue to clarify, if not resolve. On the Democratic side, a great rebellion, a coming together of former officials, members of the commenting class, and the Kennedy family to stand athwart the Clintonian future and say, Stop. They are saying, as Jack Kennedy did when pressed to endorse a hack for governor of Massachusetts, "Sometimes party loyalty asks too much."

On the Republican side an embrace, but an awkward and unfinished one. It's like the man-hug the pol at the podium now feels he must give to the man he's just introduced. They used to just shake and say, "Thanks, Bob," and go to the podium. Now they embrace, with an always apparent self-consciousness. Can you imagine JFK doing this? Or Reagan?

It is this kind of embrace many in the Republican party are giving John McCain. He has real supporters. He keeps winning. But he's not getting even close to half the vote, as the presumptive nominee should. And he has been at odds with his party on so many things.

* * *

As much attention as the decision of the stars of the Kennedy family to endorse Sen. Obama received this week, it has still not been given its due. This was a break with the establishment and from the expected, and it may carry a price. The Clintons are deeply wired into their party, they run many money lines and power lines, and Hillary Clinton is still, in the Super Tuesday states, in the lead. Will the lives of those who rebelled against her be made more pleasant if she wins? The Clintons have never had the wit to be forgiving.

But all parties, all movements, need men and women who will come forward every decade or so to name tendencies within that are abusive or destructive, to throw off the low and grubby. Teddy's speech in this regard was a barnburner. He went straight against the negative and bullying, hard for the need to find inspiration again.

He is an old lion of his party, a hero of the base. But people do what they know how to do, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest, and Teddy has long led a comfortable life as a party panjandrum who knew to sit back and watch as the dog barked and the caravan moved on. In a way he seemed to rebel against his own tendencies. He put himself on the line.

"I love this country," he said, "I believe in the bright light of hope and possibility. I always have."

As a conservative I would say Ted Kennedy has spent much of his career being not just wrong about the issues but so deeply wrong, so consistently and reliably wrong that it had a kind of grandeur to it. So wrong that I cannot actually think of a single serious policy question on which I agreed with him. But I remember the night President Reagan spoke of Sen. Kennedy's brother at a fund-raiser for the JFK Library, and I remember the letter Reagan got from Teddy. "Your presence itself was such a magnificent tribute to my brother. . . . The country is well served by your eloquent graceful leadership, Mr. President." He ended it, "With my prayers and thanks for you as you lead us through these difficult times."

Liberals are rarely interested in pointing out, and conservatives by and large may not know, but everyone who knows Teddy Kennedy knows that he holds a deep love for his country, that he feels a reverence for the presidency and a desire that America be represented with grace abroad and stature at home. He has seen administrations come and go. And maybe much of what he's learned came forward, came together, this week.

His principled and uncompromising rebellion seemed to me a patriotic act, and adds to the rising tide of Geffenism. When David Geffen broke with Mrs. Clinton last summer, and couched his disapproval along ethical lines, he was almost alone among important Democrats. It took some guts. Now others are joining his side. Good.

* * *

The Republican contest may well end on Tuesday, but I sense little relief and much unease. In terms of avowed programs, policies and approaches, Mitt Romney was the more conservative candidate, and his even-keeled air won many friends. He offered executive experience and business acumen. As for how he came across, here is Mike Deaver on Ronald Reagan: "This is a face that when the baby sees it, the baby smiles."

His supporters tell me he will fight to the end. The conservative establishment still has hopes. But the great unruly base may be doing some redefining.

If you go by the Florida returns, maybe this year positions aren't everything. Republicans on the ground think the conservative is the one who suffered 5½ years in the Hanoi Hilton. Republicans on the ground think the conservative is the one who has endured a lifetime in the rounds in Washington and survived as antispending, antiabortion and pro-military. Republicans on the ground think the conservative is the old fighter jock who'll keep the country safe in a rocky time ahead. And maybe Republicans on the ground are saying: He earned it.

The conventional wisdom is Mr. Romney can't win it while Mike Huckabee's in it. If Mr. Huckabee dropped out, Mr. Romney might pick up his conservatives. But Mr. Huckabee seems very happy running, and perhaps happy thinking of his future as the Mitt slayer in the party of John.

Mr. McCain seems to me to have two immediate problems, both of which he might address. One is that he doesn't seem to much like conservatives, and never has. They can't help admire him, but they've disagreed with him on so many issues, and when they bring this up his demeanor tends to morph into the second problem: He radiates, he telegraphs, a certain indignation at being questioned by people who've never had to vote in Congress and make a deal. He's like Moe Greene in "The Godfather," when Michael Corleone tells him he's going to buy him out. "Do you know who I am? I'm Moe Greene. I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders." I've been on the firing line, punk. I am the voice of surviving conservatism.

This doesn't always go over so well. Mr. Giuliani seems to know Mr. McCain is Moe Greene. Mr. Huckabee probably thought "The Godfather" was kinda violent. Mr. Romney may be thinking to himself, But Michael Corleone won in the end, and had better suits.

Ellen Goodman's commentary on Hillary vs. Obama.

Incidentally, my choice of referring to Senator Clinton by her Christian name and Senator Obama by his surname is not indicative of anything, just as it never meant anything that Mile Davis was always referred to as "Miles" and John Coltrane was always referred to as "Coltrane" or simply, "Trane".


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ELLEN GOODMAN

The split in the Kennedy clan

By Ellen Goodman | February 1, 2008

EARLY IN the week, someone showed her the headline that blared, "Kennedy Endorses Obama." Kathleen Kennedy Townsend responded by asking wryly, "Which Kennedy?"

Not that there was really any doubt. On the East Coast, the Kennedy A-list - Ted and Caroline - had just dubbed Barack Obama the heir apparent to the family legacy. Within hours, however, the eldest daughter of Robert Kennedy, along with her brother Robert Jr., and sister Kerry, reiterated their support for Hillary Clinton in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece.

Caroline endorsed Obama as the candidate who offers a "sense of hope and inspiration." Like her father. Kathleen, her sister, and brother describe Clinton as a "leader who is battle-tested, resilient and sure-footed." Like their father.

This was not the stuff of a vast family feud. Indeed there are Kennedys of each generation in both camps. But there are echoes here of a larger divide. Now that John Edwards is out of the race, you can find split families lurking in the polls and demographics. You can see undecided voters balancing the attractions of "inspiration" and "battle-tested."

The Kennedys have won attention by virtue of service and tragedy. The most striking part of Ted Kennedy's speech was his palpable pleasure in reconnecting with youthful idealism, maybe even his own.

For many years, Ted was the most polarizing figure in American politics. This torch was passed to Clinton. His own race for the presidency in 1980 stumbled over a softball question lobbed by CBS' Roger Mudd, "Senator, why do you want to be president?" He had no answer.

From that time on, Kennedy became the consummate legislator, one part insider, one part torchbearer. He made alliances across parties, got a whole loaf when he could and a slice when he couldn't. Was he dismissing his own experience as he dismissed Hillary's? "What counts in our leadership is not the length of years in Washington, but the reach of our vision," he said in his old-fashioned stemwinder. This classic liberal called on us to get "past the stale ideas and stalemate of our times."

We all get to pick and choose the pieces of history that please our current appetite. The 1960s made their appearance at the Obama rally as days of hope not confrontation, of common purpose not cold war. The JFK evoked was the JFK of Camelot not the Bay of Pigs, of PT-109 not Vietnam, of the moon not Marilyn Monroe. Indeed, the elegant, cool, cerebral Jack at this rally fit their post-polarization frame of mind better than his younger, hotter brother Bobby.

As Caroline said, "I've been deeply moved by the people who've told me they wish they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president." As both a daughter and mother, she resonates to the "longing" for those days and feelings.

But what Kathleen remembers learning from her father is something else: "Number one, you have to fight." On the phone, she said, "Obama's appeal is that we can all get along. My father challenged people." She remembers him quoting the ancient graffiti on the slave-built pyramids: "No one got angry enough." And her support for Clinton contains this sentence: "The loftiest poetry will not solve these issues."

This election is about the future not the past. How many more times can we hear that? It's not about who will be the next Kennedy, but rather the next president.

Bill Clinton threw a monkey wrench into the campaign and Ted Kennedy turned it into a boomerang. But on Tuesday it's Hillary versus Barack. The hair's width of difference in their beliefs has turned into a pitched battle between "inspiration" and "battle-tested." The hope that some regard as tangible, others see as helium. The experience some believe is invaluable, others call old politics.

You can hear it all in the family clan. Rory Kennedy, a documentary filmmaker born after her father, Bobby, was killed, says, "I feel we're in a very dark period in our history and Obama has the potential to get us out of it." Oldest sister Kathleen says, "In a time of crisis like this we want someone who knows what she is doing when she gets there."

What do you do in a family that's split? In the Kennedy family, says Kathleen, "We keep loving each other, talking to each other, and arguing with each other. . . . We wake up the next morning raring to go."

As we roar into Super Tuesday, the Democrats better keep that morning after in mind.

Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.

Kind of reminds me of a Billy Strayhorn tune...