Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat looks at the Virginia governor’s race, in which crony capitalist Terry McAuliffe trounced populist-y, libertarian-ish Republican Ken Cuccinelli, and sees a problem for free-market populism and reform conservatism:
I would offer, in response, this thought: Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey were all able to raise decent money in their insurgent runs against the K Street donor base by tapping into a varied donor network: the outside-the-Beltway wealthy financiers of the Club for Growth; the grassroots ideological money and Fox News-watching retiree money of FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund; the small businessmen of Heritage Action.
During the government shutdown, I explained how the Tea Party provided a second money base besides K Street for the GOP.
Here was the problem for Cuccinelli: He was running in Virginia. The overlap may have been too great between local business and suckler at the federal teat.
