Shorter Matt Yglesias: I’m a massive wanker. This is what happens when you move out of the Flophouse.

Now, indeed, all things being equal, you do want the best opponents possible. Politics in a democracy ought to be a contest of ideas — contested with spirit, sure, but ultimately occurring as a good-faith competition to determine the proper course of responsible governance. When John McCain was nominated, I thought there was an outside chance that such a contest might occur, and I know for a fact that so did the Obama people. They told me for this piece that they were, in some sense, happy that there would be a sharp debate over foreign policy, so the country would actually give the winner a mandate for a course of action. But the McCain campaign opted to run on celebrity and Bill Ayers and socialism.

And so it’s worth asking why that is. The answer is, as best as I can tell, structural. What remains of the GOP coalition in 2008 — or at least what the remains the bedrock of the GOP coalition in 2008 — is an alliance between white business interests and white religious voters. With important exceptions from writers like Ross Douthat, the right-wing post-mortems continue to exculpate their blend of conservatism from the failures of the Bush era. Would it be better for the country if politics in 2012 became a contest between Obama Democrats and Sam’s Club Republicans? Without question. But right now the only thing that will bring the Douthat faction into ascendance is the consistent defeat of the sort of politics and policies that Palin has embraced and may embrace. Viewed through that prism, hoping for the worst for Palin is the best way to bring about the state of play that Yglesias favors. So when it comes to my post, don’t hate, collaborate.