The GOP and social issues
Is The Christine O’Donnell Win a Sign That The GOP Will No Longer Tolerate “Moderates” or a Sign That The GOP Has to Shut Up About Social Issues?
And, of course, it’s funny how moderate means votes with democrats, but I digress. The GOP’s stances on many social issues are not popular and a real turn off for a lot of people.
ETA: And Huckabee again? Really?
September 21st, 2010 at 9:35 am
Heh, neither, its a sign that we are going to change the guard and talk about what needs to be done and how to properly do it WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION! The best thing is that because a lot of dems havnt been outed by T-Party candidates, they think it is good for them, what that really means is that they are irrelevent because we are gonna vote thier asses out ANYWAY so why waste time and money on them. They have made themselves irrelevent by ignoring the will of the people. And to be perfectly Honest about it, they had better HOPE that all of this change happens civilly and peacefully at the voting box because after this there is only one box left. The people are tired and pissed off, we have been failed by the voting box once, the jury box, the soap box(this one really bad, remember the town halls) and we are back at the voting box, things are so strungout, if the voting box fails again and we left in the quagmire that has been brought by the REPUBLICRATS(yea, theres really no diff, only retoric) I think the American People will be reduced to thier despitism and it will come doown to the CARTRIDGE BOX! GO VOTE! Make it happen folks!
September 21st, 2010 at 9:52 am
I think that it is a sign that people have put social issues on the back burner for right now because “Rome is burning”…
Three words: Proper threat assesment
September 21st, 2010 at 10:54 am
Here’s the thing with Huckabee. Take folks like my parents. Sure, they’d like to vote for candidates who are across the board conservative, fiscal and social, but given a choice between, say, a pro-choice, pro gay marriage, pro-amnesty Republican who’s a small government fiscal conservative, and someone like Huck who’s a big-government big spending social conservative, they’re going to choose Huck. And there are a _lot_ of folks like that, and that’s where Huck gets his base.
And I read in a lot of places that people want to drum folks like this out of the party. Well, good luck with that, if you want nothing but Democrats elected.
That’s why, even if you want to focus on fiscal matters, you need candidates that are at least not openly hostile to the social conservatives. Without both wings, you cannot win.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:59 am
Skip, not to put it bluntly, but attempting to steer the national course based on the social whims of the preceding generation is as ridiculous as running a candidate on an anti-Rock’n’Roll platform in the ’70s.
Your parents, and mine, will be dead. Your kids will be stuck picking up their tab, and rock and roll is here to stay.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:19 am
Tam, do you really think that the Republicans can win majorities without the 20% of the Republican base that falls into this category? And sure, most of that 20% is old, but they vote, and they have money.
If you want to kick folks like that to the side and tell them they have no say, well, say hello to Obama’s second term, followed by two for Hillary, etc., and about a 7-2 tilt of liberal lawmakers on SCOTUS. Do you want that? I sure as hell don’t.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:25 am
Maybe a few “social conservatives” woke up and realized that the 9th and 10th Amendments are their friends, not enemies.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:29 am
Why not? They kicked me to the side. The god-botherers have had the stick at the GOP for some time now, and they flew the plane right into the ground, spending money like water the whole time, as long as it didn’t go towards killin’ no babies.
Don’t try to scare me by telling me I’ll be responsible for Barry’s second term; instead, go lecture your parents for giving us Speaker Pelosi and President Obama in the first damn place.
September 21st, 2010 at 12:10 pm
I’m not blaming you, Tam, I’m just telling you what’s going to happen if you get your way. Assigning fault is a loser’s outcome. And please note, the preference of folks like my parents would be someone who’s both fiscally and socially conservative and small government. And when was the last time one of those was actually on the ballot for President? (Hint, I’m almost 41 and I’ve never been able to vote for one).
The only way to get what you want is to take your most important items (whether it be small government, lower taxes, second amendment or whatever) and build a coalition around those items, and then be willing to compromise on the items that are less important. That’s what the social conservatives did, they built a coalition around their issues, and compromised on everything else, if necessary. That’s all I’m saying.
And maybe you can build a coalition around what you want that can win. I’m fairly doubtful, but it is possible. In the recent NY Times poll of the views of the Tea Partiers, from the answers you can glean that somewhere around 40-50% of them are hard social conservatives, and the other half are social moderate/progressives. So maybe there’s enough of a core to build around there. And you know what, if someone builds it, I’ll probably vote for it. But until then I’ll be suggesting that the party nominate folks that don’t tend to tick off 30-40% of the party base.
September 21st, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Skip…the problem in the past has been that Republicans drifted from conservatism as a whole. Period.
The Tea Party movement *may* look like a melting pot of hard right mixed with moderate/progressive, but the problem with that (and why, if your stats are correct, the movement will ultimately self-destruct in the 2012 General Election cycle) is that there can’t be two messages coming from it. It has to be Moderate/Progressive (which is more of the same mealy-mouthed Repubicans that want big-tent, lets try to compromise and all get along) or Hard Conservative. Can’t be a mix of both.
I prefer the Hard Conservative, and most, if not all, of the Tea Party folks that I know prefer this too. There is a huge political shift going on, and while I don’t doubt the source of the stats you presented, I question the veracity, only because what I see on the street is different from the stats.
People in all walks, across all spectrums, are facing the choice of more social crap and going further into debt, or drawing the line in the sand and saying enough is enough, its time we make those hard choices that we’ve not wanted to do for generations, and start cutting back EVERYTHING even if it means that some folks go homeless, hungry, on the street, etc, etc ad nauseum.
No-one said Life was fair. We NEED a Conservative movement that will roll back all the social crap, rein in the Goobermint and its feel-good spending and policies, and finally hold the Central Goobermints feet to the fire and say that if it isn’t EXPLICITLY in the Constitution, then its no-more.
Now…folks will tell me I’m a racist for this next comment, but I really could care less…
The 14th Amendment has outlived its usefulness.Socially, the population has moved forward from the time of the Civil War and its aftermath, and it is now time to repeal it, and put the djinni that is the bloated Fed Goobermint back into its bottle, and leave to the States, and to the People, those rights that are not reserved explicitly to the Feds. The 14th Amendment placed too much power in the Fed Gov’t, and its time we fixed that mistake.
September 21st, 2010 at 4:53 pm
It hasn’t been the 14th that empowered the Feds it’s been abuse of the commerce clause and the supremes getting off on social engineering the whole country more than anything else. If the supremes were on their toes they would be preemptively declaring just about every fed law and program unconstitutional.
September 21st, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Uncle, here is how I analyze it.
First, the Left understands strives constantly to make us believe that the so-called religious right will turn the USA into a Sharia law theocracy, given half a chance. They want us divided and use moral issues to fragment us. They are not so fragmented: to them, God is dead. Long live the State!
The religious right is not monolithic, but is defined as distinct from other conservatives by a very few issues: abortion, homosexuality, and outright government hostility to Christianity (such as the Nat’l Endowment for the Arts funding “Piss Christ.”
So, let’s look at these key, index issues that define the religious right.
–In practice, because they think life begins at conception and, therefore, abortion is, indeed, murder (a logical conclusion if you accept the major premise), in political practice they want abortion returned to the authority of each state (a constitutionally correct position); they will demonstrate because they believe it wrong, but politically they want it returned to pre-Roe v Wade, an unconstitutional decision by almost anyone’s standards.
–they do not want homosexuality to become yet another special protected class who can file a discrimination lawsuit and they do not want governments at all levels to advocate homosexuality (such as “gay is good” classes in schools);
–and, they react to government’s determination to keep Christians pressed out of the public square and into harmless Christian church enclaves (using the income tax code, zoning, government grant money going only to politically correct applicants, employment laws, and the list goes on).
Here’s a close to home example. Just today, a local church hit the headlines for opening up a basement meeting room to a Tea Party group to meet. This disclosure ignited all manner of vicious opposition, including cries to revoke the church’s tax exempt status. MJM says: The government could not hold tax exempt status over the church’s head if there were no income tax.
I would not call any of those 3 positions–on abortion, homosexuality, and hostility to the church in the public square–unconstitutional, extreme or antithetical to libertarian government. Therefore, I accept those positions within the broad range of conservative thought. Better put, I accept those positions as at least consistently allied with me: opposed to godless Marxist authoritarianism forcing the rest of us to worship at the feet of the state.
I hope this way of looking at what has become known as “social conservatism” helps in figuring out how to respond to the religious right, or even whether it makes sense to react at all.
September 21st, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Edit: Oops, I was going to say that the Left understands that they can use religion to divide conservative America. That is true, but I meant to simply say that their propaganda strives to strike fear of religious rigidity into us.
September 21st, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I think the social conservatives will either vote for the fiscal conservatives, or just stay home. The fiscal conservatives will vote for fiscal conservatives but not a merely social one. With a choice between fiscal or social conservatives, you’re more likely to get the votes with a fiscal conservative. Someone who is both will do the best.
September 21st, 2010 at 8:38 pm
MJM, you realize this makes you one of those “godbotherers” that Tam and Uncle like to thumb their noses at, right?
Because they’re so tolerant and superior and all.
I’m with you.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:05 pm
mariner,
Wait, I’m gonna burn in hell and I can’t even call you a name before I go?
Chicken.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Incidentally, mariner, I don’t see much of anything in MJM’s post that I disagree with. The federal government has no business having any opinion at all on gays or abortion or any of that. Even if you believe abortion is murder, murder is not a federal crime, unless the unborn child was a federal employee currently engaged in the lawful performance of its duties.
So put that in your god-botherin’ pipe and smoke it.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:15 pm
What angers me most of all about the Huckabees is that they want to force their religion and morality down my throat.
All I am asking is to be left alone. Be religious, go to church. Just stop trying to pass laws to force others to go as well. If I want to buy beer on Sunday, don’t stop me. If a gay man wants to marry another man, don’t stand in his way. Stop trying to save the world for ‘democracy’ and let the rest of the world do what it wants.
What angers me about the progressives is the stance they take where I not only have to tolerate a lifestyle that is different from mine, but I have to pay for it. All I want is to be left alone. Stop making me pay for your kids’ lunch. Stop taxing me more because I am good at what I do.
Don’t all of you- progressive/moderate/conservative understand? WE WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE to live our lives without a bunch of busybodies telling us what to do.
September 22nd, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Well, I certainly don’t want to be botherin’ God (little joke here).