I mean, just because I disagree with conservatives and conservatism doesn't mean I don't respect those who can use facts and persuasively articulate their arguments.  Personally, I'd LOVE to see some of the people mentioned above come on this site, so we could debate them and demonstrate why their arguments are logically and ethically wrong.  But, sadly, we seem mainly to be stuck with the I. Publiuses of the world.  Ugh.

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservative."

Or Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens 1835–1910):

"Suppose you were a heartless bastard, and suppose you were a Republican, but, .....I repeat myself."

-and-

"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them."

Or Ralph Waldo Emerson (U.S. writer, poet, philosopher. 1803-1882):

"All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive."

-and-

"Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory."

Or Benjamin Disraeli (British Leader 1804-1881):

"Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future."

-and-

"A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy."

Or Franklin Delano Roosevelt (U.S. President 1882-1945):

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."

Or John Kenneth Galbraith (Economist 1908-2006):

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Sorry, couldn't help myself... I'll go sit in the corner now...

As to those conservatives that are smart, they lack empathy.  They cannot understand how some people are at a disadvantage (because of nature/nurture factors) and cannot achieve a decent life no matter how hard they work.

Or, being charitable, they  do not understand that free markets do not always work.  Good economists know that there are such things as market failures (imperfections).  For example, there may be externalities:

In economics, an externality is a side effect from one activity which has consequences for another activity but is not reflected in market prices. .

An externality occurs when a decision causes costs or benefits to stakeholders other than the person making the decision, often, though not necessarily, from the use of common goods (for example, a decision which results in pollution of the atmosphere would involve an externality). In other words, the decision-maker does not bear all of the costs or reap all of the gains from his or her action. As a result, in a competitive market too much or too little of the good will be consumed from the point of view of society. If the world around the person making the decision benefits more than he does, such as in areas of education, or safety, then the good will be underprovided; if the costs to the world exceed the costs to the individual making the choice in areas such as pollution or crime then the good will be overprovided from society's point of view.

Roadette

It would be great to invite conservatives to engage in thoughtful debate on this site. I'm wondering about the incentives that serious conservatives would have for interacting with us here?

Trolls get their jollies making jabs. More thoughtful conservatives wouldn't have the same need to do that, don't want to waste their time, and don't want to be mocked or discredited.

To the extent that RK and other VA blogs have influenced campaigns, I could see how they might want to present their views here. Maybe there's other incentives.

Form is more important than substance, after all!

Unless a person has strong social conservative leanings, he or she is likely to be disappointed with Allen.  On traditional conservative measures--economic policy and foreign policy--Allen is a failure.  That's simply a baseline reality.

Allen's main virtue is that he embraces divisive social wedge issues and goes along with the president on almost everything.  That's pretty much it.  Like you PM, I desperately believe that there is always another side to the story.  But I'm beginning to believe that sometimes there just isn't. 

Sometimes you actually have a choice between an incompetent and not very smart legislator who is amoral in political matters (George Allen); and competent, and thoroughly engaged individual with a long history of integrity in the public sphere (Jim Webb). 

Really the best argument that a person could make is the "too good to be true" defense.  In other words, "some times the best choice doesn't work out the best".  The problem here though is that Allen has set the bar so incredibly low. 

I admire Jim Hoeft's attempts to defend Allen.  And I think Charles also gives it a yeomans effort.  Both make claims and employ facts to support claims.  The content of the argument is frequently unconvincing, but the form of the argument is something that I recognize.

Underneath it all though, I get the sense that both Jim and Charles wish they were defending a guy like Bob McDonnell instead of a guy like George Allen.  I don't blame them.  It's easier to make a case for conservatism as a movement, than it is to make a case for George Allen as a conservative. 

Unfortunately, fundamentalist supply-side conservatives don't give that passage sufficient weight.