Glenn Beck and the Conservative Divide

Peter Wehner laments the possible effects of Beck on the conservative movement: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/100152.

The question that should concern the moderate wing of the Republican party is that conservative leadership is no longer contained to a relatively homogeneous group of elites. In 1997, Samuel Kernell conceptualized our contemporary political universe as more decentralized and diffuse than any in our history. The proliferation of media channels, the increased sophistication and narrowed focus of interest groups, and the postmaterial entitlements of our society made our system more of an individualized--rather than institutional--pluralism. The agenda is no longer determined by the bargaining positions of a select group of institutional actors. Instead, any interest or coalitional leader can dominate the agenda at any given moment. Now that conservatives are composed of increasingly divergent stripes--from the Big Government Conservatism of the neocons to the extreme libertarian views of the Paulites to the Moral Conservatism of the Values Voters--there is less power ceded to a small group of party elites to control their agenda and bargaining positions. As the coalition becomes more loose and the more vocal one particular faction becomes, the less likely a more moderate faction of the party will contend with the dominant faction. Right now, the apparent direction of the party leans to the extreme right, charming the moral crusaders with populist, anti-intellectual rhetoric. The only question that remains is how many moderates and independents will follow them over the cliff because or their anachronistic party-label ties?