Posted on 11/10/2012 8:05:19 PM PST by neverdem
It is time to throw the social conservatives out of the GOP. Look at what they got us — Barack Obama. It was the social conservatives who did it. They insisted the GOP support real marriage and children. To hell with that.
I’m getting this, in various forms, from lots of tea party activists. The GOP establishment in Washington is whispering it to each other. They look at Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock and conclude that they, not Tommy Thompson, Heather Wilson, George Allen, Scott Brown, etc. are the problem.
It is time to get rid of the social conservatives.
What’s really going on here is that the people who voted Republican, but who disagree with pro-lifers and defenders of marriage, have decided it must be those issues. They can’t see how what happened actually happened unless it happened because the issues on which they disagree with the base played a role.
This is a psychological avoidance of larger issues and does not stack up to the data.
Mitt Romney won about a quarter of the hispanic vote and a tenth of the black vote.
Those numbers may not sound like much, but in close elections they matter.
A sizable portion of those black and hispanic voters voted GOP despite disagreeing with the GOP on fiscal issues. But they are strongly social conservative and could not vote for the party of killing kids and gay marriage. So they voted GOP.
You throw out the social conservatives and you throw out those hispanic and black voters. Further, you make it harder to attract new hispanic voters who happen to be the most socially conservative voters in the country.
Next, you’ll also see a reduction of probably half the existing GOP base. You won’t make that up with Democrats who suddenly think that because their uterus is safe they can now vote Republican. Most of those people don’t like fiscal conservatism either — often though claiming that they do.
If you really need to think through this, consider MItt Romney. He is perhaps the shiftiest person to ever run for President of the United States. He shifted his position on virtually every position except Romneycare. Of all the politicians to ever run for office, he’d be the one most likely to come out and, after the Republican convention, decide he’d changed his mind. He’d be okay with abortion and okay with gay marriage.
Had he done that, he’d have even less votes.
Several million evangelicals did not vote for George W. Bush in 2000. His campaign had to work to get them back in 2004.
You may mentally decide, to escape having to deal with the other implications of this election, that if only the GOP would abandon its social conservatism it would do better. But if you do, go find yourself a new coalition because you won’t have half the votes the GOP has now. Good luck with that. In fact, if the GOP really wanted to expand with minorities, it’d keep the social conservatism and throw out the fiscal conservatism.
Richard Mourdock was one of two of the poster children for abandoning social conservatives this year. He was beaten by a pro-life Democrat.
The problem is not social conservatism. The problem is social conservatives have gotten so used to thinking of themselves as the majority they’ve forgotten how to speak to those who are not and defend against those who accuse them of being fringe, most particularly the press. Couple that with Mitt Romney’s campaign making a conscious decision to not fight back on the cultural front and you have a bunch of Republicans convinced, despite the facts, that if only the social conservatives would go away all would be fine.
It’s not time to throw out social conservatives. It’s time to accept that without them the GOP would be even a smaller party even less able to reach out to the hispanic demographic all the smart people say they need to embrace. Addition through subtraction never really works well.
Reagan won 2 landslides and kept the Hyde Amendment and signed into law the Pro-life Mexico City policy. And Reagan's HHS didn't mandate Religious orgs pay for birth control.
“Without the socons, the Republican Party loses what remains of its backbone as well as any claim it may possess to moral authority. And some of us are ready to leave anyway.”
Yeah I’m not going to go out of my way to vote for someone who wants to kill babies just to get a tax cut.
Romney actually had illegals working for him and he still could not win their vote
lol. So true.
Of course. They think they can convince us to lose our social conservatism and keep voting for them. They think they can convince us that social conservatism is too old fashioned and will never ever work.
Many of us live by principles and know it will work. We also will stick with it, even if no-one else is.
They’re also trying to convince us they they did not lose the election by running a liberal Republican.
Their liberal Republican loses and it somehow proves that conservatism is dead. lol.
Post of the day.
How would you know? We haven't run a social Conservative since Reagan.
What would we be if we had the same principles as Romney? Uh Democrats? Besides this election was all about the econemy jobs, jobs jobs.
B$ Freepers knew it was about Obama and who he was, but we couldn’t criticize the nice man.
We have nothing to fear from that man, Obama.<John McCain>
Yes it is :)
Say it again Susie, we have been invaded by Libertarians and Romulians again.
Precisely what we have done since Reagan. How is that working out annie? You call yourself a Texican, not hardly.
No, I’m not pushing liberalism—I certainly want no part of that, I’m not going to support it, nor would I suggest that anyone else sacrifice their principal beliefs to do so either.
I’m just trying to ask practical questions, get ideas, and discuss solutions for how Conservatism can be more clearly communicated to voters, and what things could be done differently which might be more effective towards achieving the ends Conservatives desire.
LOL My thoughts exactly. At this point I believe most of us are prety fed up with the GOP(e). Tea Party here we come!
“Romneylans”
That’s the funniest thing I ever heard.
No. If the GOP had come out and said that these men a Christians and every Christian knows that however concieved every child is Known TO God and a miracle and a blessing. Since the editors at the New York Slimes are not Christians, they cannot understand this simple fact. All these men were saying and everything they are being castigated for is simple fact to Christians but unfathomable to others. Had the GOP done that they MIGHT have begun to “alter the terrain of the battlefield.” By continuing to struggle on the field of battle that the enemy has crafted for their own benefit they have relenquished the fight before even engaging. They are, indeed, the STUPID party. Enough. Time to go.
Uh, FWIW I was a strong Newt supporter during the primaries, and wasn’t fond of Romney in the least.
Didn’t think Romney was a viable solution then, he (obviously) isn’t now, and his clones won’t be in the future.
The GOP elites trying to throw out social conservatism are the exact same people who insisted Mitt Romney was the most electable candidate in the primary.
Why in the HELL would we ever take advice from these idiots again?
The founding fathers decreed that life was one of our God-given rights. You can't be a constitutional conservative without being pro-life. I'm fine with not mandating that as long as we ban abortion outright.
Folks that is a real question we have to answer. You are foolish if you believe it didn’t cost votes.
Can you name one plank in the platform that didn't cost votes with somebody somewhere? The main thing is the decades-long perception that Republicans are the party of the rich. Romney won with incomes over $50,000 big and lost with incomes under $50,000 bigger. We cannot nominate any more candidates who both are and appear to be out-of-touch upper class guys born with silver spoons in their mouths.
We win with married women but lose with single women. It's about income. Single women have lower incomes so they vote Democrat. That's why they wanted free contraception.
This is where actual research would help. Figure out which planks of the party are hurting us most, and where, and why.
It’s important.
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