Posted on 11/24/2012 4:19:03 AM PST by Kaslin
Win, lose or draw, we're always supposedly hitting a tipping point where social issues just no longer work for the Republican Party. At first glance, this would appear to be a rather puzzling sentiment. After all, in 2010, despite the fact that the GOP was just as socially conservative as we were this year, the Republican Party had its best year in half a century. Furthermore, in 2008 and 2012, the GOP lost despite running moderate candidates who were soft on social issues and who barely brought them up at all. If anything, you'd think that seeing two non-social conservatives like McCain and Romney go down in flames should start to make Republicans wonder if we're not pushing social issues enough instead of the reverse, but if people were thinking about it logically in the first place, everyone would realize that it is a terrible idea to dump social issues right off the bat.
1) How would we replace all the votes we lose? It's highly ironic that you hear people claim that social conservatives aren't fiscally conservative, right before they urge us to purge them from the party. After all, if that were true (More on that in a moment) and the GOP abandons social issues, wouldn't those tens of millions of voters migrate over to the Democrats since we'd no longer have anything to offer them? Then, whom would we replace them with? There's already a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party called the Libertarians and they usually collect about 1% of the vote. Telling tens of millions of Christian conservatives that they can drop dead as far you're concerned to try to appeal to a few million wishy-washy independents who change sides based on the last commercial they saw and a million Libertarians who still probably won't vote Republican unless we agree to legalize crack, support open borders and close all of our overseas military bases doesn't seem like such a good deal.
2) Social conservatism is part of the Republican Party’s core: Social conservatism is not some fringe issue that's on the margins of the GOP. To the contrary, as Ronald Reagan used to say, the Republican Party is like a three legged stool comprised of a strong defense, free market policies, and social conservatism. You rip one of those legs off -- as the GOP found out during the Bush years when it started to move towards big government -- and there's a heavy price to be paid. Furthermore, if you think abandoning social conservatism would just mean that Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum, Tony Perkins and Brent Bozell would be hacked off, you should think again. If you're talking about Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Thomas Sowell, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Walter Williams, Laura Ingraham or most of the other big name conservatives in the party, you're talking about people who are pro-life, favor God's definition of marriage and are generally friendly to social conservatism. People get into politics because they want to see their values reflected in the government and if you think are going to shrug their shoulders and do nothing while issues that are near and dear to their heart are tossed into the trash like an old sneaker, you have another think coming.
3) Social conservatism can be a winning issue: The words "can be" are in there because they're certainly not always winning issues. If a candidate comes off as looking down on people who disagree with him or blunders around like Godzilla through Tokyo on a sensitive issue like rape and abortion as Todd Akin did, it can be a killer. Of course, bad messaging can kill you on a lot of issues. That's how Mitt Romney got portrayed as an uncaring, rich jerk even though he's the kind of man who rakes leaves for the elderly and anonymously buys milk for hundreds of needy veterans.
Much has been made of the fact that gay marriage finally won for the first time at the ballot box in Maryland, Maine and Washington. Of course, constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage have passed in 30 states including swing states like Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan and Virginia. Do we really want to turn off voters in those swing states to make ourselves more appealing in a handful of blue states? The GOP did get pummeled on abortion in the 2012 election cycle and most people are blaming it on Todd Akin, but Mitt Romney deserves a lot of the blame, too. Barack Obama made attacking him on social issues a core part of his strategy and Mitt responded with the same tactic George W. Bush used in his second term: letting his opponents hit him in the face as much as they wanted and hoping that their arms got tired. It didn't work for W, it didn't work for Mitt and it won't work if we try it again. If you're up against a man who loves partial birth abortion and voted three times in favor of killing babies born after attempted abortions and you get beaten into the ground on abortion, it isn’t the issue, it’s that you stink as a politician.
4) What about minority outreach? "Keep in mind that just over 78% of Americans are Christians and that number swells to roughly 85% of black and Hispanic voters." When you consider those numbers and the fact that black and Hispanic voters are still on board with Obama after the economic beating they've taken in his first term, it suggests that the GOP has a better opportunity to reach them on social issues than we do on economic issues. If Republican consultants claim we can't sell Christian values to demographic groups we need to improve with that are 85% Christian, then maybe they should get out of politics and go sell shoes.
You and I don’t agree often. But that was an excellent post.
You want to put paragaph breaks in that and try again?
Nobody’s going to bother trying to read that wall of type.
We lost the election because the base stayed home, for the most part. We need to run conservatives for office and stand by our conservative principles in social issues, not abandon them.
Republicans ceded the number one issue this election - Obamacare - back in March. And they are surprised they lost?
Hi there, ya think you could re-post this, this time paragraphs would be nice.
I am amazed that people keep returning to evangelicals when seeking to place blame for Romney’s loss. Despite being basically shunned and shut out by the Romney campaign, on a percentage basis more evangelicals voted for the guy than any other group, Including Mormons themselves.
So, any post mortem analysis needs to recognize that Romney failed to capture other groups upon which he did focus, yet retained this group even though he made no effort to do so. He still lost Catholics with a Catholic Vice Presidential candidate. Didn’t even carry Wisconsin. Fail.
Try concentrating on outreach failures where there actually was an outreach failure and there might actually be some benefit to be derived.
>>The way we win is by drawing our supporters out to vote for us.>>
I’m in NY State. I very much wanted a Romney sign. There was no listing for a phone for a Repub election office, none for the city. In short, there was no way to get a sign. In past elections, there were Repub offices for volunteers and to hand out signs. Why not this past election?
“social issues” are in actual fact moral issues
the old saw “you can’t legislate morality” is in actual fact FALSE
you can and you should.
killing, including killing defenseless babies, disabled and elderly is morally wrong
homosexuality is morally wrong
no age of consent for sex is morally wrong
divorce is morally wrong
adultery is morally wrong
the Democrats have reduced everything to equality of dollars and that is a bankrupt perspective
When (not if) the GOP dumps socials conservatives, they will lose me and most of their base.
Brand loyality only goes so far.
I am not sure that the base stayed home. That is a lame excuse to push third parties that have no chance what soever. The fact is 0bama stole the election. They might have skipped the senatorial election. There was no reason that we should not have gotten the majority, if not the super majority back if it hadn’t been for those who skipped it.
As far as the last two (legislatively), all 50 states legalized divorce at will and decriminalized adultery over 50 years ago.
The reason they did so was because of the incredible popularity of the central organizing principle of the Democratic Party : F*** who you want, when, where, and how you want, and let the taxpayers bear the consequences.
From the two major legislative victories (divorce and adultery), two others, abortion and homosex, follow naturally.
Pedophilia is an accomodation with the inevitable acceptance of homosex+whatever floats your boat, but it isnt necessarily inevitable in the way that abortion and homosex are.
The logical working out of consequence free sex re-elected Barack Obama. It really was his signature issue, and it carried the day.
It's important to recognize, however (diagnosis precedes treatment) that consequence-free heterosexual sex among adults is the keystone, and that it remains enormously popular. The need to kill the babies and to let the homosexuals into the carnival would not exist without the keystone.
Elections won't change any of this.
As far as the last two (legislatively), all 50 states legalized divorce at will and decriminalized adultery over 50 years ago.
The reason they did so was because of the incredible popularity of the central organizing principle of the Democratic Party : F*** who you want, when, where, and how you want, and let the taxpayers bear the consequences.
From the two major legislative victories (divorce and adultery), two others, abortion and homosex, follow naturally.
Pedophilia is an accomodation with the inevitable acceptance of homosex+whatever floats your boat, but it isnt necessarily inevitable in the way that abortion and homosex are.
The logical working out of consequence free sex re-elected Barack Obama. It really was his signature issue, and it carried the day.
It's important to recognize, however (diagnosis precedes treatment) that consequence-free heterosexual sex among adults is the keystone, and that it remains enormously popular. The need to kill the babies and to let the homosexuals into the carnival would not exist without the keystone.
Elections won't change any of this.
I’ve got a better one: Caving to Democrat policies breeds more customers for the social welfare system.
Jim Noble....is your best friend on FR “sakic”?
Neither of you belong on Free Republic
My best friend on Free Republic is Jim Thompson.
I'm not ADVOCATING for free and perverse sex. Can't you READ?
I'm discussing how we got to where we are. The roots of our present crisis go back 50 years, maybe 80 years.
And the roots need to be pulled up - otherwise, we won't get anywhere.
Example: "Traditional" marriage doesn't just mean two men and two women can't pretend to be married and get a few benefits. It ALSO means that it's PERMANENT and that adultery is both a crime and (maybe) grounds for divorce.
There is no "traditional" marriage movement that I'm aware of that would prevent unilateral divorce at will. But as long as the People demand unilateral divorce at will, they will also ACCEPT the pretend marriages among persons of the same sex, because by demanding unilateral divorce at will, THEY HAVE ALREADY OUTLAWED TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE.
Give my post another try. If I've been welcome here for fourteen years, I don't think Mr. Robinson will ban me over this.
His chief backers and staff people seemed to have no understanding of how to win an election when there are a lot of Republicans around.
As we take over the Republican party we need to make a list of those people so we don't end up with any of them in serious positions ~ they can go back and play with Massachusetts or something, but their time on the national stage IS DONE!
I'm guessing he got all their votes.
Obama sure didn't campaign for them eh!
LMAOROTF
JR ~ this JR ~ lets me do that ~ repeat stuff in different ways over a long period of time. Slowly but surely we are developing a theory for Conservative practice in the world of politics ~ here on FR ~ nowhere else, just here.
Glad you like it though ~ has several ying/yangs in it ~ names the audience ~ ties that to the real world ~ just about everyone can understand it I think. Think Machiavelli
Excellent point ~ there was a failure in his primary outreach group ~ the undecided middle grounders ~ they totally failed to show up.
“Romney’s main focus was on the non-existent but otherwise undecided middle with moderate views.”
An excellent post. This election has made clear to me what I understood only vaguely before.
The country is neither “center-right” nor “center-left”. The center, while numerically large, is politically impotent and in the war of ideas insignificant.
On Election Day, they follow the strong horse like the hopeless and weak morons they are.
HW Bush, Dole, Kerry, McCain and now Romney all lost by pleading with this “middle” rather than slapping them hard in the face and saying “follow me”. Obama obviously understood this - my G-d, look what he just sold the nation!
As I’ve said before, Bush was our Clinton (I had a long post on this after he came to our town in July 99). Romney was our Kerry. Sarah Palin is our Obama.
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