The American Spectator

AS NEW HAMPSHIRE CLOSES IN and South Carolina looms, conservatives are having a healthy discussion that is for younger conservatives a chance to learn anew, just as Ronald Reagan himself once did. It is a time to remember that this election is not about personality A, B, or C but about principles. Conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh — and in fact the people who voted for Reagan by the millions and listen to Rush by the millions — understand the principle of political gravity. They realize that however charming the latest batch of candidates, to the extent that they try and draw you away from these ten principles — and the eleventh as well — in varying degrees they are trying to tell you gravity does not exist. Go ahead, say these candidates. Try it. You’ll like it. No problem. Jump off the political equivalent of the Empire State Building without a parachute. Heck, politics is vertical anyway.

Is it possible to jump off the Empire State Building and go up? Sure, for a second or two. Can you ultimately avoid going down? Ahhh…no. Gravity is a fact, not a theory. Down in vertical politics, as President Reagan once said, leads only to the ant heap. It is, alas, definitely left. And in politics, the moment you start stirring the fires of resentment, pushing the sin of envy, that too is definitely left.

There is one last reason why I am a Reaganite conservative. It is, I think, why Ronald Reagan came to be a conservative, why millions of Americans today are Reaganite conservatives and, I bet, why Rush Limbaugh is a Reaganite conservative.

We all like to think we know the difference between up — and down.