Conservatives can coalesce around the Constitution, without, you know, abiding by it

Peter Berkowitz writes that social conservatives and fiscal conservatives need each other to win elections, and they can coalesce around the Constitution. I’ve known Peter for years, and like him a lot, but he’s spilled an awful lot of ink here addressing everything that isn’t at issue:

Some social conservatives point to the ballot initiatives this year in Arizona, California and Florida that rejected same-sex marriage as evidence that the country is and remains socially conservative, and that any deviation from the social conservative agenda is politically suicidal. . . .

Meanwhile, more than a few libertarian-leaning conservatives are disgusted by Republican profligacy. . . .

In addition, many are still angry about the Republican-led intervention by the federal government in the 2005 controversy over whether Terri Schiavo’s husband could lawfully remove the feeding tubes that were keeping his comatose wife alive. These libertarian conservatives entertain dreams of a coalition that jettisons social conservatives and joins forces with moderates and independents of libertarian persuasion.

But the purists in both camps ignore simple electoral math. Slice and dice citizens’ opinions and voting patterns in the 50 states as you like, neither social conservatives nor libertarian conservatives can get to 50% plus one without the aid of the other.

Yet they, and the national security hawks who are also crucial to conservative electoral hopes, do not merely form a coalition of convenience. Theirs can and should be a coalition of principle, and a constitutional conservatism provides the surest ones.

The principles are familiar: individual freedom and individual responsibility, limited but energetic government, economic opportunity and strong national defense. They are embedded in the Constitution and flow out of the political ideas from which it was fashioned. They were central to Frank Meyer’s celebrated fusion of traditionalist and libertarian conservatism in the 1960s. And they inspired Ronald Reagan’s consolidation of conservatism in the 1980s.

The fact is, Barack Obama won a significant number of social conservatives and fiscal conservatives in North Carolina, Virginia, and the entire midwest. The only people he couldn’t win over were foreign policy hawks, and therein lies the real debate: how should we use American power?

Peter completely elides the actual constitutional questions of George W. Bush’s presidency, which was more than a little controversial. You’ll recall Mr. Bush ordering the NSA to monitor the electronic communications of thousands of American citizens on American soil without warrants, and using FBI “national security letters” to pressure domestic telecommunications companies to turn over private customer records. You’ll recall detention issues, like Padilla and Hamdan. Tell us, what is a conservative who supports the Constitution supposed to believe about all this? That so long as it’s all done in the interest of national security, it’s okay?

It’s a little late in the game here for milquetoast cries of “can’t we all just get along?” There are actual issues that have to be hashed out.

Thank you, Peter, for 1,000 words dedicated to the proposition of constitutionalism without the Constitution. For an appeal to limited government without the limitations. And for an endorsement of a “strong” national defense, without any explanation of whether that strong defense is actually going to be used in the advancement of American interests instead of Iranian ones.