So let me get this straight. Why is it that Connecticut Republicans worked so hard to elect this woman? I thought the whole idea behind backing a social liberal was to get fiscal conservatism as a payoff. Now she's become a social liberal and a fiscal liberal -- she's basically Barney Frank in drag. How is she any better than John DeStefano would have been?
She's following the California model.
When are folks going to wake up and smell the horse manure ? There IS no such thing as a social liberal/fiscal Conservative, they are a contradiction in terms. Rell will ensure the GOP continues to become a larger and larger minority party (meaning fewer and fewer seats) and a rodent to succeed her. RINO politicians will always be a cancer on the party, eating it alive until it's dead.
"I thought the whole idea behind backing a social liberal was to get fiscal conservatism as a payoff."
This is almost always the trade off. And it is ass-backwards. There are plenty of social CONSERVATIVES who are fiscally liberal because they believe very firmly in public education and social welfare. They oppose abortion. They don't like gay marriage. They are usually pro-military and nationalist. Many are called "Catholics". Indeed, Hispanics are properly described as being mostly socially conservative and mostly fiscally liberal.
Republican conservatives have always recognized that trying to get socially AND fiscally conservative folks elected in half the country is impossible, so they've made the tradeoff. The tradeoff has almost invariably been made in favor of MONEY and against morality - hence the willingness to elect social liberals so long as they are fiscal conservatives. This is the immoral position, showing an immoderate Republican love of money, over even morality, when it comes right down to it. By contrast, if the Republicans took the OTHER tack: we are WILLING to accept higher taxes and more robust social welfare, but we are NOT willing to accept abortion, gay marriage and bashing the USA, there is a much greater constituency for that.
But the ugly truth laying at the core of this is that the love of money supersedes the love of morality, and when given the choice between the two, the GOP as a group will accept social liberalism as long as they can keep their cash. The other way around, accepting fiscal liberalism and social welfare coupled with strong moral standards, would lead to a much more functional society (as in: the schools would teach moral standards and enforce them), and would have a lot more Hispanics and Catholics voting for the Republican party, giving them the power.
But honestly, most Republicans love their money more than they hate abortion and gay marriage, so they WON'T accept fiscal liberalism. But they'll accept social liberalism.
Of course, the knock on to all of that is that social/moral liberalism leads to the NEED FOR government programs to take care of all of the people psychologically broken by it, and that inevitably drives fiscal liberalism.
Voir Rell. And Schwarzenegger. And Nixon and Ford.