When
my late father T. Coddington Van Voorhees VI founded the iconoclastic
conservative journal National Topsider in 1948, he famously declared
that "Now is the time for all good conservative helmsmen to hoist the
mizzen, pour the cocktails, and steer this damned schooner hard
starboard." In the 60 years since he first uttered it after
one-too-many Cosmopolitans at one of Pamela Harriman's notorious
foreign policy black tie balls, father's pithy bon mot has served as a
rallying cry for conservatives from Greenwich to Chevy Chase. Today, I
say it's time we conservatives once again grab the rigging, and set
sail with the flotilla of the true conservative in this race: Barack
Obama.

Trust me, I haven't taken this tack lightly. No Van
Voorhees has supported an avowed socialist since
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great
grandpapa Cragmont Van Voorhees lent Peter Minuet $24 and a sack of
wampum to swing a subprime mortgage on Manhattan Island. Old dad
himself often recounted how, as a lad, he would command the family
chauffeur Carleton to drive the Duesenberg down to the Times Square
Trans-Lux so he could hiss Roosevelt. But I've taken a good measure of
this Obama fellow, and I must say I like the cut of the man's jib.

How
can I say this, you ask? One look at this Obama chap is all the answer
you need. Suave, tanned, unflappable, Harvard connections; it's obvious
that here is a man to the conservative manor born. One imagines him at
the helm of the Ship of State, basked in the sunlight diffusing through
the seaspray over the bow, like some beautiful rugged Othello from a
rapturous Ralph Lauren catalog, calmly issuing instructions to the deck
crew in that magnificent mellifluous baritone of his. It's that
easy-going, almost effortless grace that has all the A-list
conservatives like David Frum and Kathleen Parker whispering
Reaganesque in hushed tones. Even Peggy Noonan -- the Grand Dame of
Gipperism -- has succumbed to Obama's undeniable conservative charms.
Just last month I listened to her wax poetic about the Adonis of
Chicago between chukkers at the Newport Club polo tournament final.
"Why Peggy, you old dowager," I quipped, "I believe you just had an
orgasm."

Certainly, my endorsement has raised more than a few
eyebrows around the National Topsider water cooler, particularly among
the alumni of jejune cow colleges like Michigan or Dartmouth. They
sometimes point to Mr. Obama's radical Rolodex and his hooey about
"wealth redistribution" and "dictatorship of the proletariat." But, as
I patiently explain, this is precisely the point - it is hooey,
over-the-top rhetorical flourishes obviously designed by Mr. Obama to
win over benighted inner city hoi polloi (a feat, I might add, that
even the Great Communicator himself was unable to accomplish). As for
his so-called radical ties, who among us hasn't sent dinner party
invitations to Gore Vidal and a leftwing terrorist or two to enliven
the postprandial conversation? Leonard Bernstein loved hosting all
manner of Weathermen and Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army
celebrities at his Park Avenue pied a terre, but it didn't mean the
Maestro wasn't in favor of low taxes. On the contrary; I know for a
fact he itemized every cent of the catering bills for his famous
terrorist cocktail parties.

Just so, I have every confidence
that Obama's true conservative butterfly will emerge once in office,
coaxed from its Maoist cocoon by conservatives like myself and Frum and
Parker and Noonan -- all of whom I am pleased to report are already
under consideration for the Obama Administration State Dinner
shortlist. Certainly there may be a tax increase or two, but isn't that
what estate attorneys and Cayman Island banks are for? Under a worst
case scenario some of us may have to set up a lease-back depreciation
arrangement on one or two of our vacation compounds, as Dad was forced
to in the dark years of Carter. But I'm not worried. I've got a pretty
good sense for character, and I'd be willing to bet my Weejuns that
inside this Obama fellow lives the soul a rock-ribbed old money
Brahmin. Ask yourself: could a seriously committed Marxist carry off a
Brooks Brothers suit like that? I mean, other than Dad's old commie
nemesis and Harvard fencing club foe Alger Hiss.

But there is an even more compelling reason to support Barack Obama: Sarah Palin.

If
you are a conservative like me, you guffawed when you heard John McCain
announced this declasse rube as a running mate, followed by
good-natured applause, thinking it was some sort of whimsical campus
prank he was reenacting from his Annapolis years. This was, of course,
quickly followed the shock of realizing that he wasn't joking, and all
that Hanoi unpleasantness had finally driven him around the bend.

It's
an inescapable conclusion that this woman has, in 6 short weeks,
single-handedly destroyed the Republican party. Certainly George Bush
may share some of the blame; but we conservatives must remember how our
hopes were buoyed by his impressive bloodlines and Yale degree before
we realized his excursion to Texas had caused him to "go native." But
la Palin offers true conservatives no such extenuating graces. I mean,
my God, this woman is simply awful; the elided vowels, the beauty
pageantry, the guns, the crude non-Episcopal protestantism, the
embarrassing porchload of children with horrifying hillbilly names, the
white after Labor Day. As fellow conservative commentator Andrew
Sullivan quipped to me the other day outside a Martha's Vineyard
antique shop, it's gratifying to know the Gipper isn't alive to see
what has become of his party.

But it's not just American
conservatives who are appalled. Just last week conservative New York
Times columnist David Brooks and I were enjoying an apres-badminton
apertif at the family weekend house in Montauk with my good friend
Viscount Klaus-Maria Von Wallensheim, the conservative EU Agricultural
Pricing Minister with whom I shared an Alpine chalet and manservant
during our years as classmates at a Swiss boarding school. "Kloonkie"
(my old school appellation for the Viscount) reported the growing
dismay of the Continental Right over Palin's embarrassing enthusiasm
for childbirth and Israel.

"Coddsie, old chap," he warned, "You
know I've always been America's biggest defender in Monaco. But if you
elect this ill-bred charwoman, I will be forced to move anchor to St.
Tropez out of pure shame."

David and I were left nodding
silently, for how else could we respond? If Palin has lost Kloonkie,
she has surely lost the entire conservative movement. The idea of this
dreadful woman in Washington is almost too much to contemplate. Not
only would it be a fashion disaster, one can scarcely imagine the White
House social calendar -- mooseburger fetes to that ghastly Joe the
Plumber, perhaps followed by snow machine derbies through the Rose
Garden?

For now, we conservatives must do what we can to
sabotage the ill-fated McCain-Palin fiasco and hope for the best. Once
the election is over we can lick our wounds, read the entrails, and
decide where the movement should go from here. In anticipation, the
Topsider will be holding a top-level exclusive strategy conference in
Nassau next January, featuring tout le monde of conservative
intellectuals from the Back Bay Review, The Prospective Standard,
National Bowtie, and The Swarthmorean. If you are attending, please be
advised that gentlemen's jackets will be mandatory after six PM.