Conservatism's Fresh Face

More important than the candidate Ruth voted for were the issues she said she cared about most. "Life" is number one: It remains the philosophical bedrock of the current GOP, even if the devotion to "life" is sometimes mocked by other aspects of the party's platform and performance. (The saga of Walter Reed and other military hospitals risks makes the party's commitment seem especially hypocritical.)

The child of legal immigrants—people who, as Bill Clinton used to say, "worked hard and played by the rules"—she favors construction of a fence across the southern border so fervently that she invited the Minutemen to speak at Georgia Tech last year.  She has jousted with the school administration over free speech issues and has the other-side-of-the-Baby-Boom, CR gift for "campus agitation."

She rules out Rudy or Sen. John McCain (for now, anyway)—but seems to have settled on Romney as the closest thing to an acceptably doctrinaire conservative, even if his doctrines have changed 180 degrees in the last few years. As for Mormonism, she told me that she is less concerned with its theological teachings than the kind of tradition-minded families that seem so numerous among its adherents. "They've got some kind of wild teachings, I guess, but they are such decent people," she told me.

There were lots of Ruth Malhotras at CPAC—committed and yet hungry and practical. I saw a lot of people (and lots of young women, actually) when I went to Springfield the other week for Sen. Barack Obama's announcement.

A new generation is coming into politics. They not only welcome "multicultural" beings such as Ruth Malhotra, they are proud to be associated with (and even led) by them. At a time everything is digitally instant and ever-present, and the percentage of immigrants in America is at an all-time high, they think globally by nature. They sense the risks, but want a more hopeful picture than the one presented, say, in the movie "Babel." They have medleys of strongly-held views, and yet value expertise and managerial shrewdness.

As the conference drew to a close, I spoke to David Keene, CPAC's avuncular impresario and founding father. "I haven't seen a turnout like this since 1975," he said. That year, the Baby Boomer conservatives came of age as they got behind Reagan's challenge to President Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination.