Funding Fathers: The Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement, a book by Ron Robinson and Nicole Hoplin, is a story of how lone men with big wallets can change the world. Books chronicling the history of the conservative movement focus on academics, activists, and men of action. Here, for the first time, is a history of the money behind The Consience of a Conservative, Ronald Reagan, Regnery Books, the Heritage Foundation, and other iconic institutions, books, and leaders of the conservative movement. Read my City Journal review here.

Dan,

I think you have honest concerns about the disagreements between conservative rhetoric and practice. They certainly sound as if they conflict as stated in your review.

However, I think you're confusing a secondary characteristic of conservatism with a central characteristic. Were we to believe in just whatever the market selects, we would just be for whatever the majority of voters decide. There would be no political position. Conservatism means more than looking at the scoreboard and rooting for the winning team.

Confusing a peripheral principle with a central one is common enough from what I've observed. Something gets said so much--because it's in contention--that people can get the idea that it is more central than it is.

Conservatives have been contributing to churches for years. Not based on the idea that churches would ever become self-supporting as their contribution to society. But they were private funds directed for privately-chosen ends, chosen worthy by the contributors.

As well, Buckley's God and Man at Yale wasn't so much a critique about the absolute marketability of Yale's curriculum as it was about whether or not Yale represented its mission honestly in return for the earned--and saved--capital from the families entrusting their children to Yale.

As much as marketing is a part of our free market, there is a part of marketing that the conservative conscience can never marry. Its immediacy and appeal to the appetite, make a more uneven ally for conservatism than the privately-chosen charity as a body that does not respond to market forces.

Heard you talking about this this weekend.

Money certainly matters. Just ask the Messiah who, by some accounts, raised over a billion campaign dollars. Or, should we say "billion Soros dollars"?

Good thing it's not just those evil rich Republicans who buy elections, eh?