Conservatives need to all work together

Who are the "in" people? Who are the "out" people? This editorial in the Washington Examiner is very timely:

If some commentators had their way, the conservative movement would toss out the raucous “tea party” people and remake itself as a gaggle of eggheads. We would be fools to do so. Here’s why:

An army in the ancient world needed foot-soldiers, charioteers, and archers. A football team today needs an offense, a defense, and special teams. Leave out one element, and the entire enterprise usually founders. (Yeah, we’re talkin’ to you, Redskins.) And a political movement needs –

· Intellectuals, who develop ideas and apply old ideas to new circumstances (Edmund Burke, Adam Smith)

· Activists, who explain ideas to the public and rally people around those ideas (Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine), and

· Politicians, who put those ideas into practice in government (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson).

The divisions between the categories are not absolute. In the modern conservative movement, William F. Buckley Jr. and Milton Friedman straddled the line between intellectuals and activists, and Ronald Reagan the line between activists and politicians. Nevertheless, conservatism, like any political movement, is most successful when it is strong in all three aspects.