"It’s the economy, stupid,” was a useful slogan for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign. Of course, it wasn’t really true. The Clinton campaign was about much more than the economy. It was about “ending welfare as we know it,” for example, and putting government on the side of those who “work hard and play by the rules”—all of this part of a broader redefinition of the Democratic party away from the failed liberalism of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

Well, we’ve endured 2015, the next to last year of the Obama administration. It's not been without damage to the country—both to its constitutional fabric and its standing in the world. But endured we have. One more year to go.

The point, though, per William Faulkner, is not just to endure but to prevail. America can prevail if today's conservatism prevails—by which we mean a conservatism that incorporates most that is good about yesteryear's liberalism and today's conservatism, and that is also willing to think and act anew, as our case is new. And conservatism can most easily prevail if the political party that is the home of conservatism prevails—the Republican party.

In fact, the prospects

On January 15, 1787, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote proudly from Prague to his friend Baron Gottfried von Jacquin: "Here nothing is talked about except Figaro; nothing is played, blown, sung, and whistled except Figaro; no opera draws the crowds like Figaro. It's always Figaro. Certainly it's a great honor for me."

Now, after more than two centuries of human progress, in great cities supposedly more advanced and more enlightened than the Prague of 1787, we have come to this: Here nothing is talked about except Trump; nothing is reported, analyzed, praised, and denounced except Trump; no candidate draws the crowds like Trump. It's always Trump.

Certainly this is not a great honor to America.

You're worried. Okay, you're alarmed. Actually, you're panicked. Donald Trump will be the nominee and destroy the party. It's embarrassing for the GOP that Ben Carson has so much support. Marco Rubio will be judged by voters too young and inexperienced for the Oval Office. Ted Cruz would be a certain loser to Hillary Clinton. And it's too late for someone else to come from behind and win the nomination. All scenarios lead to disaster.

Not to worry. All will be well .  .  . probably.

First and foremost, we will likely be spared a Trump nomination. In the latest national poll, taken at the end of November by Quinnipiac, Trump leads the GOP field with 27 percent, 10 points ahead of Rubio at 17

It would be an interesting exercise to trace the history of the word sanctimony. In its original derivation from the Latin sanctimonia, it seems to have had the straightforward sense of sanctity or sacredness. But centuries ago, it took on its current meaning—of pretended or affected or hypocritical holiness. Already in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Lucio remarks on “the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table”—i.e., that thou shalt not steal.

How unusual is this year's GOP presidential race?

“To give oneself the law is the highest freedom. The much-lauded ‘academic freedom’ will be expelled from the German university; for this freedom was not genuine because it was only negative. It primarily meant lack of concern, arbitrariness of intentions and inclinations, lack of restraint in what was done and left undone. The concept of the freedom of the German student is now brought back to its truth. Henceforth, the bond and service of German students will unfold from this truth.”

“It would send a demoralizing and dangerous message to the world that the United States makes judgments about people based on the country they come from and their religion.” 

Walter Russell Mead has a terrific piece in the American Interest on "President Obama's Cynical Refugee Ploy."

Highlights:

To see the full cynicism of the Obama approach to the refugee issue, one has only to ask President Obama’s least favorite question: Why is there a Syrian refugee crisis in the first place?

Bernard-Henri Lévy has written an intelligent and forceful, if somewhat grandiloquent, piece on Paris and its implications. Highlights:

So it’s war.

A new kind of war. A war with and without borders, with and without states, a war doubly new because it blends the non-territorial model of al-Qaeda with the old territorial paradigm to which Islamic State has returned.

But a war all the same.

Generally speaking, The Weekly Standard is from the Edith Piaf school of second thoughts. We don’t have many. And when we do, we keep quiet about them. As the great chanteuse put it: Non, je ne regrette rien.

But on rare occasions we admit we may—just may—have a few regrets. Here’s one: We’re now inclined to think we overstated matters when we began an editorial six weeks ago by asking rhetorically, “How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?”

During the Democratic debate Saturday night, Hillary Clinton said that ISIS "cannot be contained, it must be defeated." She also said, not once but twice, that this "cannot be an American fight" (while adding, "although American leadership is essential").

Here's the most compelling and powerful reaction I've read so far to the attacks in Paris, by Mark Steyn, "The Barbarians Are Inside, And There Are No Gates."

A thought-provoking email in response to my editorial, "The Self-Destruction of the American University:"

In January 2011, we at TWS had the notion that it would be good to defeat President Obama in 2012. And so in a blog post we asked the sensible question: " Wouldn't it be easier just to agree now on a Ryan-Rubio ticket, and save everyone an awful lot of time, effort, and money over the next year and a half?" We reiterated that thought in the spring  and summer.

‘Republicans in Turmoil!” “Chaos Confounds GOP Congressmen!!” “Catastrophic Conservative Crack-Up Imminent!!!” “Trump Likely GOP Nominee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

All nonsense.

Interesting political debates typically have what could be called primary effects. In Wednesday night's case, those would include the Bush-Rubio exchange, which did a lot of good for Rubio and a lot of damage to Bush, and the Cruz assault on the moderators, which was dazzling.

Anderson Cooper’s final question in the Democratic presidential debate on October 13 led to an interesting and revealing moment. He asked:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.” You’ve all made a few people upset over your political careers. Which enemy are you most proud of? 

Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s been two months since the first Republican presidential debate. How do things now stand for the party upon whose success next year rest all of our hopes for constitutional government at home and a manageable world abroad?

Let me risk ridicule by mentioning the ruthless Vladimir Putin and the clueless Joe Biden in the same sentence: The emergence of Putin abroad and Biden at home could reshape the 2016 Republican presidential race.

How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?

“Oh, come on,” you’re inclined to respond. “It’s not that much of a problem. After all, Donald Trump and Ben Carson aren’t really the leading GOP presidential candidates, are they?”

On Monday, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the Republican presidential front-runner on April Fools' Day, quit the contest. There had been no scandal which disgraced him, no momentous mistake which undermined him. It was simply that he once had support from Republican primary voters; he no longer did.

Here are the judgments of several senators on the Obama administration’s Iran deal:

All of us at THE WEEKLY STANDARD are shocked and deeply saddened by the terrible news of the death in a cycling accident of our friend Jake Brewer, at age 34. Jake, the husband of contributing editor Mary Katharine Ham, was not only a person of great achievement and remarkable promise, but a thoroughly decent and admirable man. He was full of life and lived life to the full, joyously and generously.

Mary Katharine has written a brief and extraordinary tribute to Jake on Instagram:

The American people believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. When pollsters ask whether the country is on the right or the wrong track, wrong track prevails by better than two to one. And the American people are right. We are going the wrong way: The economy isn’t strong, the government doesn’t work, social trends aren’t great, and the world’s going to hell in a handbasket.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Iran deal, and his recent piece The Supporting Actors.

The results of the latest straw poll of WEEKLY STANDARD readers are in. It's not a scientific poll, of course—but since the respondents are very perceptive WEEKLY STANDARD readers, I'm going to claim (why not?) that the results are a suggestive leading indicator of where the GOP race may be going.

I'm pleased to let you know that the Foundation for Constitutional Government, which produces the Conversations that I've been hosting for a couple of years, has just released a series of websites called Contemporary Thinkers.  The aim is to make more ea

It's Labor Day—the end of summer, the beginning of the school year (though now schools usually begin earlier), the time when the pennant races get interesting (will the Mets collapse yet again?), and the traditional kick-off for the presidential races (as you may have noticed, those now begin earlier as well). But, it may occur to you as you grill in your backyard or sit in traffic on the way back from the beach, why "Labor Day"?