By: Robert Lee 
I’m watching the Iowa caucuses unfold right now and it’s getting more mollifying by the minute.
It is slowly sinking in that Ron Paul – even if he doesn’t win the caucuses – could leave the social conservative’s litmus test with twice the portion that John McCain picked up in 2008. The Drudge Report (which has been criticized this month for being too pro-Romney) even has him beating Romney by their polls.
This go-around we were supposed to be afraid of was someone like Sarah Palin splitting the party vote. Republicans are supposed to be rallying behind Romney out of fear of letting President Obama win again in 2012. And yet Paul is still grabbing the clout.
As much as I detest his anti-Fed rhetoric reminiscent of a Jacksonian crusade to kill a bank (and plenty of other ideas he’s floating), conservatives have to come to terms with the fact that he and his ideas are a substantial part of the party now. Not only do we need them, moderate conservatives and Republicans across America would be hypocritical to turn their noses up to this kind of partisan infighting. After all, we aren’t moderate because we like a lukewarm and fuzzy feeling inside when we vote.
Moderates are moderates because we place more importance on pragmatism than party lines. We’re not ignorant enough to go down fighting to prove a point. We may have plenty of conservative principles, but at the end of the day we know someone across the aisle believes the opposite. The point of democracy isn’t to get what we want, but to come to a consensus that works for everyone.
Courting the left doesn’t completely encompass moderate conservatism. Moderation is acknowledging these stark contrasts in opinion and searching for the practical, happy medium. Moderates have to respect liberals’ love affair with the welfare state just as much as Paulites on the Right yearn for another gold standard. Neither is going to work for America in the long run, but they still deserve to be incorporated into our amalgam of ideas and solutions when we look to cure America’s ailments.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating we listen to every crank out there on talk radio or the blogosphere. But Rush Limbaugh never competed with Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses. Sarah Palin never set a single-day fundraising record as a primary challenger. These are things that need to be acknowledged and respected. This isn’t so much about Ron, but about the fact that there is an ideological base – a sizable group of supporters – that agree with him within the Republican Party.
With so many conservatives backing Paul, it’s time to approach him with the same degree of sangfroid that we approach President Obama’s policies and ideals. It doesn’t really matter how wrong we think they are – they’re Americans who have America’s best interest at heart.
