An Old School Conservative Sums up the Election

Daniel Larison:

There were good and principled reasons to vote against Obama, and I understand why some friends, family, and colleagues supported Romney to that end, but the problem for traditional conservatives was that there were never really any good reasons to vote for Romney. He was always at best merely a means to an end for his supporters, and as it turned out he was not even a very effective means to achieve their goal. Traditional conservatives can’t celebrate Obama’s re-election, but they certainly shouldn’t be disconsolate over Romney’s loss, either. Romney represented almost everything that was wrong, misguided, and self-destructive in the Republican Party and the conservative movement. His defeat is a good outcome for the cause of peace and liberty in the country as a whole and within the Republican Party. The public rejected a candidate of fathomless cynicism and dishonesty, and that has to be greeted as a small, encouraging sign that there are still some things that Americans won’t tolerate in their leaders. Very few candidates have deserved to lose an election as richly as Romney deserved to lose this one.