Charles Krauthammer and I are in good company with Bill Buckley in believing that in politics, it's better to have power, i.e. seats in Congress, than ideological purity. Not every district or state is going to elect the kind of conservatives I'd like, and to hear Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin arguing otherwise is dispiriting.

However, this is a different kind of election year. Palin's endorsements have been surprisingly powerful. Who knows for sure that Angle and O'Donnell can't win? I don't. But if they don't win, the tea partiers could be responsible for blowing a chance to re-win the Senate, and even if they do, Palin and DeMint are going to look less competent and more like ideological tyrants than true republicans. I'm probably as conservative as either of them, but I would really hate to see a situation where the likes of Mike Huckabee could boot me from the party over religious differences.