Posted on 06/25/2009 7:42:15 AM PDT by steve-b
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's admission today that he had an extramarital affair strikes another blow to the GOP's brand as the party of family values, particularly in a region of the countrythe Deep Souththat has become ever more critical to Republicans, who've lost ground recently in the Northeast and the West.
Outside South Carolina, "Sanford is most well known in states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which are growing more competitive for Democrats," says Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked for Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee during the 2008 campaign season. "This is devastating for the Republican Party in the very region where it has to make gains."
Fast on the heels of an admitted affair by Nevada Sen. John Ensignanother emblem of the GOP's values brandSanford's announcement also makes it harder for the national Republican Party to maintain credibility with the values voters who've been most loyal to it.
"As far as the Republicans go, this raises the issue of how marriage is treated by political leaders," says Wendy Wright, the president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America.
Belcher, the Democratic pollster, says the recent string of Republican sex scandals is redolent of the run-up to the 2006 midterm elections, when former House Leader Tom DeLay resigned after being indicted in a campaign finance investigation and Florida Rep. Mark Foley was caught sending lewd text messages to young male congressional pages. Both were Republicans, and Belcher, who was then pollster for DNC Chair Howard Dean, watched the Republican advantage on values issues shrink from more than 20 percentage points to around 5 points over the course of the '06 election cycle.
The Democrats won 31 seats in the House, regaining control of the chamber.
Belcher says he has not conducted national polls since last year's election. "But at this point, when it comes to values, the Republican brand has deteriorated more, and their hopes of making gains in the coming midterms has to be dramatically undermined," he says. "My guess is that we've now gone from a tossup on values with the Republicans to [Democrats] having at least a 4- or 5-point advantage."
Sanford, who was considered a potential 2012 White House contender, has long been a darling of "pro-family" religious conservatives. In the 2008 election, Christian right activists who were unenthusiastic about the Republican presidential field tried unsuccessfully to draft him as a presidential candidate.
The GOP is nothing more than the Dem-lite party. It is time for form a Conservative Union with a platform that dictates removal from the party of any RINO types.
The author of this article illustrates that all humans are stupid
I guess he’s become our “Gary Hart.”
Glad to see another self-important drone bite the dust!
Is it true that Sanford wasn't a social conservative? For months I have been trying to figure out where he was on that spectrum and I could never come up with a conclusion.
We are all sinners. Human nature is fallen. Just because someone sins does not mean that there is no sin. Spitzer and Edwards sinned as well. As someone once said, hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue. Conservatives endorse family values because they are morally correct, not because they can promise that they will never fall into sin or immorality.
....Where was the outrage when Edwards got caught....?
He wasnt in office and hasnt been elected to anything lately. He may have broken campaign fund regulations and that is being investigated. Also, I think he got a break from the press because of his wifes cancer and everyone knew he was a phony anyway.
and pay no attention to the House voting on the largest tax increase in American history, over a fraudulent Carbon threat. Don't worry about those few extra hundred dollars per month on your upcoming utility bill.
It’s not that he wasn’t a social conservative, but he really wasn’t a preacher about morals or anything like that. He was definitely more libertarian in his leanings, IMHO.
While Sanford is a reliable pro-life vote, social issues aren’t his main focus. Fiscal restraint is Sanford’s interest. Yet that not going to stop the media from touting Sanford as a Bible Preacher.
On Fox News, Mort Konkracke said Sanford is a blow to the right wing. He went to say conservatives better support moderates.
People have forgotten that Keith Olberman quit his original show and walked away from MSNBC because he refused to cover the continuing Clinton scandals.
Repub. Ensign has an affair with a woman - SCANDAL! The GOP is through.So Democrats can do anything and none of it hurts the RAT Party. But a couple Republicans cave to a weakness and the GOP is through.
Repub. Sanford has an affair with a woman - SCANDAL! The GOP is through.But then....
Dem. Congressman William 'Cold Cash' Jefferson gets caught taking bribes -- ((((( crickets))))) -- He's innocent till proved guilty. no Harm to dem Party
'My' gov, Dem. Blago gets caught soliciting bribes for Obama' seat -- ((((crickets))) --- He's innocent till proved guilty, annnnnd becomes a 'media star'. no Harm to dem Party
Dem Congressman Patches Kennedy goes into drug rehab again --- ((((( crickets ))))) no Harm to dem Party
Dem NY Gov Spitzer gets caught with hookers, resigns, then --- ((((( crickets )))) --- no Harm to dem Party
Dem. Silky Pony Edwards gets caught having an affair with a woman and a LOVE CHILD - minor scandal, then --- ((((crickets)))) --- but no Harm to dem Party
Yep. Got it. Makes perfect sense.
Not outrage, disappointment. Christians are forgiving people, but the media is not, we surely can agree on that. It is naive to continue public support for a failed conservative values family man, it will only get worse.
We agree.
My point was Dems/media are hypocrites.
There in lies the rub among conservatives, Libertarianism does not equal Conservative, they share some limited government aspirations, but condone the behaviors that rot the movement from the inside.
Ann Coulter point out that Goldwater was very conservative, but he was very liberal socially, and opines that, that had more to do with his loss than the daisy add.
The real rub is that these guys who talk about God and values and are NOT fiscally conservative and believe in big government answers to every solution, keep winning elections in places like SC.
I’m different than many, I guess, but I couldn’t possibly care less how often a candidate attends church if he believes in cutting government and fighting liberalism. That includes whacked out social policy. That said, if a man takes a vow to be faithful to his wife and breaks it, that’s an indication that doesn’t take vows seriously. This can be a problem for someone who has to abide by an oath.
A blow to GOP values brand?
I think not. The reverence for values lies not in perfection, in never making mistakes. It’s in the aftermath. In the GOP, the perps tend to suffer, even to resign. Not so for the Democrats. They have to be voted or thrown out, something that often doesn’t happen. They certainly don’t go willingly.
Rush just gave a detailed reason why we need hypocrisy, in response to many emails claiming, Sanford's folly proves we need to dump social values from the ticket.
I suggest you read Mark Levin's new book Liberty to Tyranny for a reasoned response to Libertarianism.
I’ve read Liberty and Tyranny. I don’t agree with Levin on that at all.
We don’t need to remove social values from the ticket, but when social values REPLACE small government fiscal conservatism, then all we’re doing is electing more ‘moral’ tyrants, rather than leftist tyrants. Big government IS tyranny. When the government grows, it matters not which ‘party’ the culprits belong to, it is a noose around all of our necks.
Some folks may like big government if ‘their side’ controls it. I’m not one of those people.
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