Why is it that social issues are the only set of issues that are considered mutually exclusive of all other issues, as if everyone else besides social conservatives are repelled by them?
Its not logical.
No it is not logical. I think many are trying to find a pathway to winning. And it seems that the fiscal concerns strike a concern accross the board with many, even beyond those who call them conservatives.
Rick should keep talking about social issues. Sometimes he has a way of speaking that comes across as negative and judgemental. He needs to work on that. Not drop them just learn to ariculate them in a way that he can help a broader spectrum of people to understand why he is trying to say. He is starting to and getting better everyday.
Many of us are both social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Some of us believe the pathway to victory goes through the pathway of jobs, economy and the national debt.
Social Issues when they are being articulated by someone who does not have the intellectual ability to articulate his stands on them well, are easily painted as hateful and petty.. This is exactly where Santorum is. He is incapable of articulating his social conservative views in ways that don’t look hateful and foolish. Lets not even get into the fact this guys not a amall government conservative...
I’ll vote for the nominee whoever it is, but I just see 2006 all over again if Santorum is the nominee, he will be painted effectively as a radical extremist and have no change of winning.
Dorothy Rabinowitz is definitely not just an economic conservative. She talks about social/cultural issues on the FOX WSJ show and at least at one point she was praising Newt heavily. She perhaps correctly realizes that Santorum is a lightweight who will not be able to stand up to or deal with the criticism leveled against him, as he showed in the last debate.
Also, last week on the FOX WSJ show, most of the panel was defending Santorum’s record and saying they did not think he was really a big-government guy, and they said they were happy that he voted against the unions more often than he voted for them. I was pretty surprised how bullish they were on Santorum’s economic record. The chick they had on was the only one criticizing him at all (not Rabinowitz), so it might be that social issues gender gap again.