Hayward joins the conventional wisdom of Washington in missing the real story about the Right’s struggles in recent years — missing it in a profound way which exemplifies the inside-the-beltway thinking that continues to cripple conservatism. As my colleague Pejman Yousefzadeh summarizes it, Hayward “points out that there is a serious imbalance between intellectuals on the Right, and activists on the Right. There are plenty of the latter, but not nearly enough of the former.”
This strikes me as exactly the opposite of the truth. When one surveys the organization lists and attendees inside the Beltway and in most states outside it, you find scads of policy experts and think tank scholars. While state activist organizations have struggled on small budgets, and while conservative writers and pro-market bloggers can barely keep the lights on, national-level opinionmakers and opinionsharers remain plentiful, saturating the market, the panel circuit, and the cable news with their wisdom — which can be had for pennies, and if it’s a wannabe intellectual, for even less.
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