Robert Novak's column criticizing Mike Huckabee for calling the Club for Growth the Club for Greed is typical of the power establishment of the GOP which has been in control for too long.  This establishment has won tactical elections over the years, but has consistently lost the strategic battle for the direction of the country as we have slipped further into cultural despair.  Conservative citizens should step back and assess how the GOP power structure has done.  Do you want to stay with the current game plan, the current pooh-bahs, the current message? 

This country is suffering from the meaninglessness of the rationalism of the Enlightenment.  We were built initially on a combination of the Renaissance and the Reformation, but 20th century forces have conducted a quiet revolution of the Enlightenment.  The Judeo-Christian consensus no longer exists.  The little pockets of meaning we have left in the heartland are being prosecuted into meaninglessness by the ACLU, i.e. stripping any ability for a community to express devotion to Christ or any other religious symbol. 

As we lost the Judeo-Christian consensus, it was replaced with what 20th century theologian Francis Schaeffer called the secular philosophy of personal peace and affluence.  This philosophy has been aligned politically with religious voters for several years because its devotion to freedom and economic growth prefers limited government.  But in the process of trying to limit government, this philosophy has stripped the very foundation of meaning this country had for its first 150 years or so--real community, real meaning, foundational belief in something other than rationality.   

Personal peace and affluence is the philosophy represented by the GOP power structure, the Club for Growth, CNBC, Donald Trump, and apparently Robert Novak.  The problem is, it's not a stable governing philosophy.  People will not suffer the results of this philosophy over the long-term.  As a Harvard Business School graduate and corporate professional, I have intimately witnessed the pernicious nature of this philosophy.  I am no Leftist, so you knee-jerk free-marketers need to take a deep breath and actually hear my words rather than writing me off as a Leftist.  I'm a die-hard free-market economist, trained by Chicago and MIT PhDs.  I'm a die-hard fan of business and capitalism.  But even Ludwig von Mises in The Anti-Capitalist Mentality revealed a disdain for people who busy themselves for nothing but pursuing wealth and possessions.  It is detestable.  Donald Trump's marketing acumen and business success are to be commended, but his philosophy, his raisson d'etre is horrrific.  Admit it.  I have lived and worked for too long among people who live by the philosophy of personal peace and affluence to keep naively trumpeting them as theoretically valuable to society.  Step out of the theoretical world!  Sure capitalism is the best system known to man for allocating resources.  Business people who drive supply curve shifts to the right via systemic improvements in the production potential curves are valuable.  We agree.  But the moral philsophy of the people operating within this capitalist system today can be destructive to society.  

Huckabee's point is that we don't exist on this earth for economic growth.  I'm a huge fan of growth, but the Club for Growth as a statement of primary purpose for our society is a statement of meaninglessness.  Properly understood, growth is just a byproduct of a solid society devoted to the Judeo-Christian consensus.  Growth was never pursued as the end goal of our lives until the mid-20th century in this country.  Growth should not be the end goal.  People are correct to reject that philosophy.  The problem is, their only alternative currently is to go Left and vote for Democrats for a better sounding philosophy.  But Marxism, viewing the world through a materialistic lens, is just as meaningless as personal peace and affluence, and it generates more poverty and toil than capitalism. 

Huckabee is attempting to knock growth, or any other symbol of the current GOP establishment off the flagpole and replace it with true meaning, something worthy of life, something that gives a nation a reason to exist.  Growth is not that reason.  Low taxes is not that reason.  Less regulation is not that reason.  These are all good things, but they are not a priori reasons for existence.  The Democratic a priori case sounds much more meaningful than that.  That's his only point.  Reagan was the last GOP leader who was able to make that point in a popular enough way to lead the nation.  Perhaps Huckabee will be able to as well.