Given all the reassessment going on today about conservatism and its popularity and viability for governing, I recommend picking up a copy of The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge, and the 1924 Election by Garland Tucker, III.

The author is Chief Executive Officer of Triangle Capital Corporation in Raleigh, N.C. Over the years, I’ve highlighted how Coolidge’s ideas relate to Acton’s thought and mission. And while I’ve read and written a lot about Coolidge, I knew next to nothing about John W. Davis. Davis was a lawyer, ambassador, and Solicitor General of the United States who hailed from West Virginia. He argued 140 cases before the Supreme Court. As the Democratic presidential nominee in 1924, he was also Coolidge’s election opponent.

Davis believed strongly in limited government and economic freedom. He criticized the policies of the New Deal saying, “Whether business is better today than it was yesterday, or will be better or worse tomorrow than it is today, is a poor guide for people who are called upon to decide what sort of government they want to live under both today and tomorrow and for the long days after.”

I reached out to the author to ask him some questions about his book and about the ideas and significance of Coolidge and Davis. Below is the interview:
Read more on The ‘High Tide of American Conservatism’ and Where We are Today…

Some proponents of limited government understandably yearn to see Mitt Romney’s recently announced running mate, Paul Ryan, as something like the pure intellectual descendent of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Some on the left, meanwhile, will be tempted to portray him as a heartless monster who only wants to enrich the 1 percent. Paul Ryan the politician is more complex than either portrait. Far from throwing granny under the bus, his efforts at budget reform are an essential step in saving Social Security and Medicare, along with improving the long-term fiscal health of the nation. On the other hand, and although his American Conservative Union score is a solid 91.69, he did vote for TARP, the bank bailout, and the auto bailout–government intrusions he has said he now partially regrets.

Read more on The Complexities of Paul Ryan…

The point has been made by outstanding thinkers like Stephen Carter and Richard John Neuhaus that the New York-Washington, D.C. establishment eats up left wing religion and declares it delicious. Give a radical a cross and we have activists bravely “speaking truth to power” and “speaking prophetically.” Put the cross in the hands of a conservative and suddenly secularism is the better course and church and state must be rigorously separated lest theocracy loom every closer.

Read more on The Political Double Standard for Religion…

Former Acton research fellow Jay W. Richards will be on the Michael Medved Show today talking about his new book, Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. He will be on during the show’s third hour.

Brown University student Kevin Roose has written a largely sympathetic and often amusing outsider’s account on the spiritual lives and struggles of conservative evangelical students at Liberty University. Roose, who took a semester off at Brown, decided to enroll at Liberty posing as an evangelical for his book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University. Possibly setting out to write an expose of sorts on Liberty’s quirky Southern Baptist fundamentalism and the students efforts there to gear up for the culture wars, he unsurprisingly finds a much more complex story to tell.

Read more on Review: The Unlikely Disciple…

One of the more interesting discussions at last week’s Heritage Foundation Resource Bank meeting in Los Angeles was the “Hollywood Conversations” session with screenwriter and novelist Andrew Klavan and Lionel Chetwynd, a writer, producer and director. Both men pleaded with the gathering of conservatives — social, political, economic — to stop beating up on Hollywood ad nauseam and to do more to support good work by conservatives.

Read more on PBR: Conservatives and Hollywood…

When I was in college, a popular refrain from many academics was to explain the rise of the “Right” or conservatism in the American South as a dynamic brought about because of race. Books like Dan T. Carter’s The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics attempted to link the politics of George Wallace to Ronald Reagan’s brand of conservatism. And if you are suspicious of that theory because Wallace was a New Dealer there is even an explanation for this lofty leap in a book by Joseph Lowndes titled From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism.

Read more on Review: Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch…

In the next issue of Religion & Liberty, we are featuring an interview with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Sanford has made national headlines for his principled opposition to all bailout and stimulus legislation coming out of Washington.

Read more on Taking a Stand: R&L Interviews Gov. Mark Sanford…

Nicholas Kristof’s Dec. 21 New York Times column was, he says, “a transparent attempt this holiday season to shame liberals into being more charitable.” He quotes Arthur Brooks’ “Who Really Cares” book which shows that conservatives give more to charity than liberals.

Read more on Why We Give — Liberal and Conservative…

Laura Ingraham, the popular talk radio host, will be in Grand Rapids for an event sponsored by the Acton Institute on September 17. Please make plans to join us for this exciting event. Currently there are still tickets available and you can purchase them online through the Acton Institute here.

Read more on An Evening with Laura Ingraham…