courts. Rothbard, in fact, argued that Meyer's fusionism was actually the natural law-natural rights branch of libertarian thought which Rothbard himself and other true libertarians followed. Libertarian journalist Ryan Sager in 2007's The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party reviewed Meyer's work favorably and called for a principled revival of Meyer's fusionism to save the embattled party following its 2006 electoral defeats. Meyer's philosophical synthesis Rothbard's argument that Meyer was simply a libertarian and not a synthesizer, someone who was somewhat confused about the nature of tradition, can be criticized in return for forcing tradition into his philosophy through the back door by calling it "common sense." Rothbard insisted morality was already part of libertarianism as he understood it – the "Aristotelian-Lockean natural rights wing," as he labeled it, as opposed to the "utilitarian-emotivist-hedonistic wing." Yet, is not the proper response to this: who is the manqué? Is not the popular understanding of libertarianism (the Libertarian Party, for example) precisely the precepts of the "hedonistic wing?" With common sense and natural rights (and even St. Thomas Aquinas) as part of his libertarianism, could not Rothbard just as well be labeled as a fusionist manqué, or simply as a fusionist, since his synthesis did not follow the predominant utilitarian/emotivist wing of libertarianism? Paul Gottfried criticized Meyer's fusionist synthesis from the traditionalist, realist right by charging that it is impossible to say that Meyer's fusionism had worked. It rejected many elements of a comprehensive fusionism that could have created a movement that achieved great things but failed in this by purging powerful voices on the right who did not follow its party line. Meyer rested his view of freedom upon "Christian metaphysics" as did Rothbard, Gottfried argued, making Meyer's philosophy of history too "rough" to attract many of the Old Right who were more realist, secular and pragmatic. Rejected by the fusionist right these tended to see themselves as martyrs to their principles, especially excluded by the neoconservatives who controlled access to intellectual funding and prestige. Gottfried called for a new more comprehensive fusionist alliance based upon "similar" Meyer-like principles that could now include a second generation Old Right that "no longer extols an active government even in principle," a coalition that would only exclude the nationalist, pro big government neoconservatives. Joseph Bottum "cannot see how to put the cracked egg of