Is anyone surprised that Ron's Iowa supporters are young, liberal, and the least wealthy? He got a plurality of voters under 40 and about half of those under 30. A plurality of those making less than fifty thousand a year support him, and his biggest support comes from those making way less—they see through the claptrap that free markets benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. A plurality of those calling themselves moderate or liberal, rather than conservative, voted for the one man unlike any of the other Republicans. He did very well among independents; Republicans, on the other hand, preferred each of his two major competitors by a margin of two to one.

The American Right's position for the last sixty years at least has been: We will countenance socialism, so long as we get war and the police state. Is anyone surprised that most conservative Republicans would rather vote for a theocratic warmonger like Santorum or a soft socialist like Romney than a man of peace like Ron? I would bet 80% of Republicans would prefer Obama to Ron Paul, which is what about that percentage essentially voted for yesterday. Does this mean reaching out to the right is pointless? Of course not. It is always important to try to find converts to the cause of liberty. In absolute terms, many people who consider themselves conservatives can be brought to appreciate a foreign policy of America First, a constitutional respect for due process, an embrace of budgetary responsibility. Yet it is mostly the young, those not at all attached to the Buckley-Reagan-Palin view of conservatism, who are attracted to Ron Paul's message and the Rothbardian focus on peace, sound money, and individual liberty.

Most "conservatives" who will accept the Ron Paul program are not "conservatives" at all, but classical liberals who, repulsed by the collectivism, culture warring, and hypocrisy of the left, have by default joined company with a group of people just as guilty of collectivism, culture warring, and hypocrisy. Americans with traditional values can and should be libertarians. But it is a mistake to confuse political conservatism, the enemy of freedom from antiquity through the Cold War to this day, with libertarianism.

With very few exceptions, the official conservative movement—comprising the liberventionists, the Tea Party usurpers in DC, the theocons, neocons, Reaganites, the rightwing think tanks, almost everyone on Fox News, and the National Review crowd—is peddling a lie: the mirage of small government coupled with militarism and the national security state. It is simply an impossibility to have liberty and the type of state the conservatives envision to vanquish evil abroad and in every bedroom. When the time comes to support either the one guy with a clear record and unquestioned principles for free enterprise and limited government, or a politician who is approximately as statist as Obama or worse, most conservatives will opt for the latter. Ultimately, conservatism is pro-war socialism.