I know, it sounds crazy. Insane. Some alcohol-induced delusion.
It's not.
Christopher Buckley, son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, is voting for Obama.
Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.
Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: "William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama." I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of "Ron Reagan Jr. to Address Democratic Convention," but it’ll have to do.
This is a man who personally knows John McCain. So why would he vote for his opponent?
John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, "We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us." This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget "by the end of my first term." Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?
This has become the moment where principled conservatives (and they do exist) have decided to break from the reactionary, Dominionist mob that is consuming the Republican Party. Buckley is only the latest one to do so. Andrew Sullivan was one of the first, Daniel Larison was another. But the pace is beginning to quicken.
The more John McCain uses Sarah Palin to incite hatred in these rallies, the more he does it himself, the quicker the exodus will be. And while they may not become Democrats, we should encourage them nonetheless. When they are gone the GOP will be a dessicated corpse, surviving only on the hatred of a benighted few. It will be a regional party at best and an embarrassment to real Americans.
So a hearty welcome to Christopher Buckley. May many more of your colleagues follow you soon.