Conservatives and Conservatives

Count on Cato to spotlight an issue too often obscured: the difference between "conservatives" and small-government "libertarians." Quotation marks are appropriate because (a) it's so hard to come up with anything like a workable definition of conservatism; and (b) in a strict sense, there really aren't any libertarians anywhere. Oddly, defining the distinction between the two groups may be easier than defining either on its own. Still, it is remarkable how consistently people--not only the media, but interested citizens and often enough even the subjects themselves--elide the distinction. One person who does get it and does speak out about it--check his new memoir--is Mike Huckabee, who thought he could be a contender last year until he found himself ground into sausage stuffing by a bunch of party heavyweights who made it clear that they had really no use for the Huckabee base except when it cames to their votes and their money and their enthusiasm. It's the same kind of wall that I suspect Sarah Palin will run into soon enough, unless some other wall jumps up to hit her first.