The insanity of the primary cycle reminds me of the lost opportunities and factitious, fratricidal wars embodied in that series. (If you haven’t read it, you really should — it’s quite good.) Fantasy literature aside, I can’t help but think that this process has revealed some things about conservative thought and the Republican primaries that we should improve upon in the coming years:

1) Organization is *crucial*. Romney, a candidate loathed by a large percentage of Republican voters, won in large part by having strong organization in place, and a campaign that stretched back years. Ron Paul, similarly, won a respectable amount of the votes in a party which largely loathes his ideology and which finds him as a person to be endearingly eccentric at best, or loathsome and inarticulate at worst. All of the candidates were, at some point, frontrunners; of the top three, however, two (Romney and Ron Paul) were organized and established. Conservatives need to establish themselves early and often from now on in Presidential campaigns; we should encourage conservative prospective nominees to stop with the teases and reveal their intentions. Sarah Palin’s flirtations, and Rick Perry’s late entry, were both damaging in establishing an organization for either one as a conservative candidate for President.

2) Along those same lines, our field was terrible, both this year and last year. Why? Because most of our governors with the requisite experience suck. I know, I know — Bobby Jindal, Mitch Daniels, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, and Haley Barbour were great conservatives, and turned us down. Well, that’s five governors in the space of 12 years. What about the rest? Why aren’t all of our Southern governors as conservative as Haley Barbour? Why aren’t all of our Midwestern governors as conservative as Mitch Daniels? Why aren’t all of our western governors as conservative as Rick Perry? Electing conservative governors, equipping them with the tools that they need to get the job done (compliant Congressmen being the biggest tools, heh), and keeping them accountable and honest is not only good for our states — it also immediately improves our field of potential nominees for President.

3) Iowan voters are not representative of the voting public. They continue to hoist horrific candidates to prominence based on perceived (and largely irrelevant) superiority on social issues. Rick Santorum was clearly not what one would consider to be a traditional conservative on spending, and his foreign policy is unpopular even in the party that preferred it scant years back; he has few of the relevant life experiences that make a good executive. Nevertheless, grassroots fervor catapulted him into first place alongside Romney. This is a trend which has been extant for enough Presidential primaries, that conservatives should be of a mind to reform Presidential primaries to their advantage.

4) Presentation is important. One will note that the rise and fall of candidates roughly correlated with their ability to impress their debate audience. Yes, the debates are an embarrassing buffet of stupidity and pandering, but they are still important. Our candidates need to get better — and one way to get these candidates is to *not* defend every conservative ingenue or innocent who is savaged by the media. One will notice that the conservative heroes of the past few years have been utterly unable to communicate in hostile environments — Perry, Palin, and many, many of the other “true conservatives” have suffered because they never understood how to defend themselves from the media. Ronald Reagan did not win because he was a poor communicator — he was, in fact, called “the Great Communicator”.

I don’t mean to be unkind, but we must give conservative politicians and media figures incentive to change this behavior: if they believe that they will get love or approval from conservatives by retaining endearing (but harmful) speaking crutches, then they will be less inclined to change them. Rick Perry started changing his debate performances when conservatives abandoned him in droves — it is clear now that he always had it in him to deliver solid performances; he was just underperforming at the beginning of the primary, for whatever reason. Conservatives should make more clear that their candidates will not get love just because they were assaulted by the media or anyone else for bad presentation or a speaking tic. It’s unfair, yes — but it is infinitely more unfair to voters to have to endure a Romney because the Perrys all came off looking like fools.