Rats on a ship

There is much being made of conservatives bailing on the McCain campaign. Those on the left want to see this as a growing rift that will tear the republican party apart. As tempting as it is to long for the complete destruction of the neo-conservative movement and the republican party they've come to control, there is no such event waiting on November 5th. Christopher Buckley and Chistopher Hitchens have come out strongly against McCain/Palin (and by default for Obama/Biden). Others have come out less forcefully (Kathleen Parker, David Brooks). There is little or no intellectual rift here. If McCain were up 8 points in the polls, Buckley and Hitchens wouldn't have bailed, and all the other conservative commentators whose mild rebukes of the republican ticket would more likely be nothing but praise, with everything else being equal (Palin's crappy interviews, McCain's weird smile). This is a major realignment in the federal government coming on, much like the 94 republican gains, but republicans managed to blow all of those gains in a little over a decade. As many have said, republicans campaign well, they just don't govern well. There will be no lasting rift among the right and their chattering classes. But hopefully they'll all being wandering around in the wilderness together for the next 15 or 20 years.