The 'Buckley Rule' - Now?

By J. Robert Smith

Concerning Christine O’Donnell’s stunner in Delaware, the eminent Charles Krauthammer writes that the late William F. Buckley had a rule: “Always support the most conservative candidate who is electable.”

The Buckley Rule may be all well and good, but as Doctor Krauthammer acknowledges, the nation isn’t in ordinary times. The country, as the good doctor writes, is experiencing a president whose far left agenda aims to transform the nation fundamentally – and not for the better if you prefer freedom.

Hence, in extraordinary times might it be expected that freedom-loving voters aren’t interested in the pale pastels of a Mike Castle or the nuance offered by the Buckley Rule? That a radicalized president, Mr. Obama, has greatly polarized the electorate, leading conservative voters and tea party patriots to shun the “electable” Mr. Castle in favor of a lesser known candidate who evinces the conservatism that they hanker for?

Mike Castle was supposedly a Delaware political titan – a breeze to win the GOP primary and the general election against any Democrat. Curious that this giant, Mike Castle, couldn’t fend off a young lady short on experience and resources but long on commitment to conservative principles.

Castle’s loss may be attributable, in part, to his hubris, but chances are that no amount of money thrown into his primary campaign was going to change the result.

Might something truly profound be happening in Delaware and across the nation? Might the tea party uprisings be the first wave in a coming sea-change in American politics? In part, even liberal columnist and Fox News analyst Kirsten Powers agrees.

No, it wasn’t last minute endorsements and campaign support by Senator Jim DeMint or Sarah Palin that did in Mike Castle, as Doctor Krauthammer suggests. Endorsements matter only when voters are receptive. Endorsements tend to affirm voter choices, not make them.

The nation is in the opening act of a far-reaching fight for the heart and soul of America. It’s a fight that won’t be resolved in one or two elections. In these extraordinary times, the old rules don’t much apply.