The Rise of the Metro Republicans How McCain, Romney, and Giuliani may redraw the red-blue map.

The Weekly Standard ^ | February 19, 2007 | Noemie Emery

[Clintonfatigued]

Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the base of his party; the former governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, son of a Michigan governor, a Mormon who looks, sounds, and comes across as a city boy; and the former mayor of New York, the Big Apple itself, ethnic and Catholic, pro-choice and pro-gun control, married three times, and a man who--Neil Simon, where are you?--moved in with a gay friend and his partner when he was thrown out of Gracie Mansion by his estranged and enraged second wife.

None hails from the South, none looks or sounds country, none is conspicuous for traditional piety, and none is linked closely to social conservatives. At the same time, none is exactly at odds with social conservatives either. None is a moderate, in the sense of being a centrist on anything or wary of conservatives; rather, each is a strong conservative on many key issues, while having a dissident streak on a few. Each has a way of presenting conservative views that centrists don't find threatening, and projecting fairly traditional values in a language that secular voters don't fear. In a country that has been ferociously split into two near-equal camps of voters for at least the past decade, this is no small accomplishment, as it suggests the potential to cross cultural barriers, and therefore extend one's own reach. If one of these men wins, it may mark a return to broader, national parties. And the iconic map of the recent elections,

[OB1kNOb]

Metropubbies. A new term that defines most RINO pseudo-conservatives to a tee. They vote today as adults like they voted for class president back in high school, like it was a popularity contest, not based on who was most qualified.

[antisocial]

"Thanks to Bush and his nannystating cronies, the days of social conservatives being the sole voice of the GOP base are numbered."

Actually you can thank Bush for causing the GOP to become a permanent minority. Also the wishy-washy Senate leadership.

[Liz]

What a load of hooey from the Weekly Standard.

You got that right, dirtboy.

Anything the WS prints about Giussolini has a hidden agenda. WS Publisher Billy Kristol is taking orders from his daddy. Daddy Irving Told Billy You Better Hurry Up and Do Something (because 48% of social conservatives reject Giuliani when they learn of his positions on their issues).

Rudy is the linchpin in The Big Plan to takeover the Repub party, and ditch all us pesty social conservatives.

Here's The Plan straight from the horse's mouth, conhead guru Irving Kristol (Fox pundit and WS publisher, Billy Kristol's father, who are avid Rudy backers): "The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be.....to convert the Republican Party and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy."

Oh yeah, Irv, that idea worked really well elsewhere (/sarc). Luckily, professional help for that dictator fixation of his is available. Now the The Kristol Plan to dislodge the conservative power base ignorantly depends on the false assumption that conservatives are going to roll over and play dead.

Ain't gonna happen.

[bilhosty]

"No, it's time the Wall Street Wing of the GOP supported the conservatives -- for once, unhedged."



Actually when it comes to Wall street I agree with you.I think we need to reorganize. we are losing strength and elections everywhere outside of the small town and Southern Continuum. We have to be more representative of the average person. The social conservatives are very representative of the average person in the heartland. But,They are not the majority. they are needed and we will have to get along. But, there are others on the coasts and in suburbs that need to have a voice(myself included). We are not being represented by the small town-Southern crowd as well as we need to be and certainly not by the libs and Dem's. We need a double organization one for that Smalltown-Southern wing and one for Suburban-Urban conservatives. you just cannot ignore one or the other and expect to win. Politics involve coalition building and that is the way it works.

[bilhosty]

That is right Reagan built a coalition. right now Small town-Southern "social Conservatives" are not a majority probably because they are not a coalition.That coalition is disapearing. part of the reason is success. we have defeated the Communist threat. Taxes are lower, as is crime and welfare has been reformed. our fiscal Conservatives have given up the fight (wrongly) for limiting government because they think that cutting taxes will raise more revenue with out limit(they never heard of the law of diminishing returns). Although the Dem's can't seem to get rid of Al Sharpton they have gotten the message that the Dem's as a black party is a loser and black issues have almost disappeared from sight. So many of the issues that Reagan won on have diminished. To look back at that success and say we need to repeat is is like the Dem's in 1968 thinking that all they need to do is maintain the corporate liberal message that won them control over the previous 30 years. You have to look at yourself and reconsider things. that is just the way it is.

[ClaireSolt]

Seems to me that it is very conservative to keep our powder dray and watch and listen until we see someone we like. Let the libs swoon and moon after candidates like rock stars. The shine will tarnish before the election.

[Retired COB]

Maybe related to the worst-kept secret in Nashville a few years back, namely old Fred's steamy affair with Lorrie Morgan.

Lucky Him! She's HOT!

[Forgiven_Sinner]

"You have to realize that not everyone here is a member or relates to Evangelical church's or small town life. Small town and southern values have come to define Conservatism and Republican values. There are plenty of us who are different. Right now we are winning in small towns and the south and starting to lose every place else. some of us are very worried. Even though we didn't agree with the Soc conservatives on all of those issues we went along because they were not important to us and we wanted to win. Now we have to face the point that what is conservative and small town does not have to be the same thing and if we don't make a change we become a minority."

Sure. You need to realize that many of us aren't conservative because of a political party, but because of religious belief. That's not going to change no matter what happens in the primary, 2008 election, or in the social fabric of the country.

If conservative values become unpopular and unelectable in this country, then Christians will just have to evangelize more--unless the country collapses. But that doesn't mean we'll support candidates who support abortion.

[Convert]

Have you been to www.nationalpopularvote.com ?

[freedomdefender]

So many of the issues that Reagan won on have diminished.

That is so wrong. And if the GOP dumps Reagan's pro-life position (or its formal opposition to gay marriage), you'll find out how wrong you are, because such foolishness will elect Hillary.

[lentulusgracchus]

No, what's over there? Surely the MSM aren't asking us what WE think?

[lentulusgracchus]

Small town and southern values have come to define Conservatism and Republican values. There are plenty of us who are different. Right now we are winning in small towns and the south and starting to lose every place else. some of us are very worried.

This is what the urban, ex-Trotskyite, South-bashing Neocons have been telling us for 11 years now, going back to Christopher Caldwell's Atlantic Monthly article titled "The Southern Captivity of the GOP."

Item: NeoCons don't like the South or Southerners. They're urban ethnics who walked away from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in the 60's after the Left took it over and started bashing Israel. That was 40 years after the urban-ethnic bloc votes (Italian, Irish, Jewish, Polish, some other blocs in various cities) took the Democratic Party away from the rural Jeffersonian Democrats in 1928 to nominate urban Irish Catholic Al Smith, and then Franklin Roosevelt, and refounded the Democratic Party on the "principles" of Tammany Hall "wardheel welfarism," which they eventually turned into State Socialism.

Item: The NeoCon critique, that Southern Good Ole Boys naturally disgust and repel people in other parts of the country, is some deft catering to their own prejudice. It's the intellectual equivalent of saying, "Please don't bring your black friend into this restaurant -- the other patrons might object." Well, whose prejudice is it really?

Item: The NeoCon critique didn't stop GWB from being elected President twice, even though the Leftstream Media painted Bush as a hate-puppet with attributes of Gomer Pyle, Festus, and Bonzo the Chimp.

Item: The GOP got nailed in 2006 on ethical issues -- the grounds Nancy Pelosi originally chose to fight out the election on, but had to cool it for a while after Rep. Jefferson (D-La.) got caught by the FBI with a zillion dollars in sleazy cash in his freezer. Ooops. But Nancy went back to that grift, and Rahm Emanuel secured a lineup of conservative-sounding 'Rats like (Exhibit A) Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. Emanuel, old Clintonista SuperRat that he is, suckered the voters. And he was only able to do it, because the GOP was severely embarrassed by a bunch of people whose ethics fell down around their ankles in an election year, which killed a key part of the appeal and message of social conservativism, of personal integrity, honesty, and morality. Pelosi and Emanuel, with the help of a Ratweasel gay Democratic House staffer who outed Mark Foley (R-Fla.), and prosecutions of GOP House members, basically sent the voters the competing message that ALL REPUBLICANS = CORRUPT HYPOCRITES SO VOTE FOR US.

It wasn't conservatives who stayed home on election day. It wasn't Midwestern Republicans fleeing in terror from the black-robed mullahs of the Christian Right. It was indies and Reagan Democrats who walked away from the GOP -- because the GOP Congressional leadership and the RNC let the voters down, bigtime. Want names? Denny Hastert, Ken Mehlman, Tom DeLay (although there may be some mitigating factors for Tom -- he was being tried in the media by a lowlife 'Rat operative circus-clown prosecutor in Austin, in what the 'Rat pols and papers managed to turn into a big political show-trial operation). The House leadership allowed the 'Rats, in a long-planned, carefully thought-out attack on the core message of the GOP, to paint them as untrue to the principles of the Contract With America and to the basic civic virtues Americans have always wanted to see in candidates for office.

The 'Rat attack was a thing of beauty. They bit the baby and got away with it. They didn't even have to promise anything really, not even to "stop the war". They just pointed the finger and stood around looking ..... conservative.

Well, they aren't, so that will open a bit of daylight for the GOP to fight it out with them in 2008, after the crazies have been lurching to the Stalinist Left for a couple of years.

The RNC has to clean the stables, and it has to be seen to clean the stables, between now and 2008. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen with the Bush family, with its noblesse oblige loyalty toward its Oort-cloud of Bushie political operatives, still firmly in charge of the Party and the RNC, so.......

[Convert]

It's a website dedicated to getting rid of the electoral college and having a popular vote for President.

Looks like a serious well-organized LONG TERM PLAN to me

[metalurgist]

Excellent analysis. The Republicans lost in 2006 because they allowed themselves to be portrayed as corrupt hypocrites.

[Kuksool]

There are no differences between the GOP candidates and Dem candidates. Who cares if the Dems have absolute power for the next four years? The GOP has proven it can't do anything with power. It is better to keep RINOs like Judy Topinka and George Ryan away from power.

[OKIEDOC]

I agree.

Let the hardheaded take their toys and go play outside in the cold alone.

I believe many posters on this thread may be ABR anything but Republican supporters.

[RockinRight]

I was thinking he could win PA, NJ, and MI. But I agree with your thought that if he could win those states...do we really want him?

[OKIEDOC]

I believe this next presidential election is the most important of our life time.

Any and I say ANY of the Democrat candidates will spell disaster for our traditional way of life.

Evidently the hard heads have forgotten what four years of Cut and Run Cowardice Negotiations and Malaise can due to this great nation.

[OKIEDOC]

"Now I am conservative who believes in welcoming people of various backgrounds into the GOP. Diversity only serves to strenghtened the Conservative Movement as well as society"

REPLY:

I wonder who said the above excellent statement and whether or not they meant what they said?

People, we have no sway or say if a Democrat is elected.

At least with a Republican we have some influence.

[Kuksool]

When the GOP elects crooks, the whole slate of Republicans get tarnished whether deserved or not. I have zero tolerance for corruption. The GOP needs to cleanse itself of corruption before it gets the opportunity to govern.

It is better to let the public experience unchecked liberalism in order for conservatism to be fashionable again.