Lest conservatives be too proud, it's worth recalling that conservatism's rise was decisively enabled by liberalism's weakness.
William KristolI was "Never Trump." But it turned out never republican was really the theme of this election.
William KristolAt the end of the day,[Mitt] Romney was pro-life, but [Rick] Santorum was more fervently pro-life, and had been for longer. They're all going to repeal Obamacare, but Romney has once endorsed something like it. In the old days, there really were differences on fundamental issues, even on foreign policy, [for which] [Newt] Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum were pretty similar.
William KristolI personally - if I were designing the tax code - would have a tax code in which Mitt Romney paid more than 13 percent, given what I know about the kind of investments he made money from.
William Kristol