Vance’s Senate race is an almost perfect test of these ideas because the front-runner in the Republican primary, former state treasurer and tea party product Josh Mandel — who, according to recent polling, leads Vance by 6 points — is the candidate of traditional conservative tax-cutters. Vance’s law school friend, the one who talked about his beard, told me that Vance was wrestling with the values of his new milieu throughout his time at Yale.