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Of course conservatism is an ideology. An ideology is just a collection of ideas, and if you read our Founders and those who have followed in their footsteps, you know that our nation is built on a collection of ideas, hence, an ideology. The difference between us and liberals is that our ideas are better grounded in reality (aka natural law). The left’s grand ideas, focused as they are on creating a utopian equality of circumstance, are pure magical thinking, and can never work. Our grand ideas, like individual rights and freedoms, individual moral duty, individual reward for individual effort, do work in the real world, and produce a better reality than is possible under the delusions of a man-made utopia.

But we cannot elect grand ideas to political office. We are a nation that believes in rewarding exceptional individuals for exceptional contributions, and in politics we do that through elections. So why should it be so strange that someone like Sarah Palin, who had indeed demonstrated extraordinary giftedness at political leadership, should be the focus of conservative attention? There is a job to fill, and many of us believe she is exactly the right person to fill it. That is not a cult of personality. That’s just common sense in hiring the next President.