Cassandra on the Not-Really-Conservative Orientation of Scott Brown.

Yeah. I knew about it, and a lot of political junkies did as well.

Part of the problem is in defining “conservatism” (and then, of course, deciding on whether it’s a good thing or not).

But then, I’m not even positive that I see Governor Palin as a real dyed-in-the-wool conservative. I mean, I get that she’s pro-life, and unlikely to endorse gay marriage out loud any time soon. And I realize that her pro-life credentials are burnished by having had a Downs Syndrome baby. Furthermore, I get that the fact that she actually bore Trig infuriates her political enemies, because they’re . . . oh, I don’t know—mad that she made a particular choice, fearful that she wants to lord that over all women under all circumstances, provincial enough to assume that her course of action implies a particular judgement for all families.

I mean, I see that she’s anti-abortion, and I realize that abortion remains a big dividing line in this country. But that remains one single issue, irrespective of what she’s done in her personal life to follow-through on her commitment to same.

Yet even with her being a big bad non-choicer, and a meat hunter—and sporting that evil quasi-Midwestern twang—I don’t think she’s the ultimate Social Conservative out there. Perhaps she would qualify as such if it were true that she’d obstructed access to birth control in schools, as her critics charge&mdaash;but of course she did no such thing. (Newsflash to liberals: evangelical Christians don’t have the same take on birth control that Roman Catholics do. There are actually a couple of doctrinal differences; trust me. I read up on this at one point.)

Of course, the word “conservative” seems rather imprecise to me in the first place, so there’s that. Fiscal cons? SoCons? What?

Cassandra is hip to the fact that the Scozzafava-Brown analogy is imprecise, so I’ll just underscore that: Scott Brown supported Massachusetts’ state-run healthcare program (though he concedes that the reform needs reforming now). He is an acolyte and political ally of John McCain’s. Cass quotes Ace on the need to eschew purity tests, so I’ll quote Ace as well—not to contradict Cassandra, but to point out how different that race in upstate NY was from the statewide contest in MA, and to complement the point she’s making about how one must be cautious about “ideological purity”:

As Allah points out, the previous Republican won with 60% of the vote in this district. Now, if this were a case of attempting to play on the Democrats’ field, attempting to steal a seat from them, I might be tepidly supportive of this candidate. (Tepidly.) Even if she’d be an awful Republican, at least the Democrats would have to spend money to oppose her and take the seat back.

But this does not seem to be a liberal district. For example, the man she would replace, John McHugh, seems strongly pro-life, which is to say, he’s a more or less conventional conservative on this issue.

So what, exactly, is the thinking here? If McHugh could manage 60% wins on a strong pro-life platform, why is it that we need a strongly pro-abortion candidate to woo the district?

On issue after issue, she’s not merely moderate or squishy. She’s outright liberal. Card-check is unpopular with any but the most liberal representatives in the safest liberal districts. But to win this seat, we, the Republican Party, need to embrace the end of the secret ballot in union balloting?

Um… why?

Interestingly, I think Ace is nominally pro-choice, as I am. Nominally. But he has more team spirit. And I don’t think anyone really, truly believes that abortion is going to be illegal in this country any time soon: right now, it’s all about whether Federal funds should be used to pay for the procedure.

[Eh; talk to the Irish, where even birth control is illegal, and the best they can do to faciliitate abortion is create a “right to travel.” You know, that was uncalled-for and over 20 years out of date; I apologize. I tried to check it, but my browser froze up, and I hit “publish” without verifying. That was very stupid of me. Where I was trying to go with that, in my own clumsy way, was to point out to the American Left that their standards of birth control and abortion access are much, much higher than those of Western Europe—at the same time my lefty friends extoll the virtues of having a “planned economy” because of its alleged moral superiority, they are reluctant to allow any sort of brakes to be placed on “reproductive rights.” And a lot of girls and women are therefore bullied into getting abortions in this country as a result of the culture here, which dictates that any suggestion that one might want to even think it over a bit is tantamount to denying choice.

Sara, thanks for calling me on my bullshit, and I apologize. No, I don’t want to “insult your country.” If I did, I’d be in a world of hurt here at home. It was rank carelessness, not malice. I’m sorry.]

And of course his larger point was terribly important: some establishment GOPers were willing to give away a lot more than was necessary in NY-23, and in arenas where it mattered, such as strengthening the hands of job-killing unions.

There was no reason for that whatsoever.