Conservatives Jump Ship: Wick Allison

by David Safier

I’ve never heard of Wick Allison before, but he was the publisher of the National Review from 1990 to 1993, recruited by no less a conservative luminary than William F. Buckley himself.

Less than a month ago, Allison wrote A Conservative for Obama In D Magazine in Dallas, a magazine he co-founded. It’s not that he sees the error of his conservative ways. Instead, he says the so-called conservative movement has left its principles behind, and, though he disagrees with many of Obama’s ideas, Wick sees Obama as someone who he can trust to deal with the country and the world responsibly.

In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher.

[snip]

…today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts.

[snip]

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.

This kind of respect and admiration from a man who still holds to his conservative principles speaks volumes — and not that Obama has sold out to the right wing. It says that Wick sees in Obama a leader who has the ability to rise above politics and labels and do what’s best for the country and the world.

Sounds like something right out of an Obama speech, doesn’t it?

Note: Here’s a comment added to the article by the daughters of Bill Miller who ran for Vice President with Barry Goldwater:

Your article endorsing Obama found its way to my computer, Wick… and I wanted you to know you have a VERY strong “thumbs up” from three folks you might least expect: my two sisters and me. We are the daughters of Bill Miller who ran for Vice President with Barry Goldwater back in ’64. We have all morphed quite independently into feeling, as you do, that the Republican Party in general and George Bush in particular do not represent in any fashion what our dad stood for more than 40 years ago. In fact, we are all HUGE Obama Mamas! I live with my family in Salisbury, NC… my older sister Libby Miller Fitzgerald is in Lynchburg, VA… and our youngest sister Stephanie Miller is in LA where she has a nationally syndicated radio talk show and is seen regularly on Larry King and other TV shows. Thank you for your wise words. I hope there are enough others like you to put Obama over the top. Or we’re headed overseas to live!
Mary Miller James