If you’re familiar with our friend Phil Klein, whether through his work at the Washington Examiner over the past year or here at AmSpec in years past, you know that he’s long been one of Mitt Romney’s most dogged and incisive conservative critics. In his new ebook, Conservative Survival in the Romney Era, Phil takes a detailed look at how the right should relate to Romney as a nominee and (if he wins) as president — how, in other words, to support him over Obama without giving Romney a pass. Phil considers how the CEO-like Romney responds to ideological pressure, examines the Bush-era votes on Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind as a cautionary tale of a dynamic to avoid, sketches out an ambitious domestic policy agenda to serve as a yardstick for success, and, in anticipating the charge that he shouldn’t be criticizing the GOP nominee during a critical election seasons, lays out a philosophy of ideological journalism as a distinct enterprise from partisan activism.
At 14,000 words, this five-chapter mini-opus is a great use of the ebook format, presenting ideas that are a bit too complicated to fit into an article with an immediacy that wouldn’t be possible in a full-length book. Buy the Kindle edition here.

