4 Reasons The GOP Would Be Foolish To Dump Social Issues

Townhall.com ^ | November 24, 2012 | John Hawkins

[ansel12]

Amazing bashing Evangelical, the most conservative voters in America, while defending the democrat voting block of the Roman Catholics.

Evangelicals are the least of our concerns, the pro-abortion Catholic vote is a huge problem.

Pollsters don’t define Catholics, a Catholic has to declare that he is a Catholic to be counted as such.

The Catholic church itself counts many, many, more people as Catholics, than the actual Catholics who identify themselves as such, to voting pollsters.

We need outreach to Catholics to get them to switch to the pro-life party.

[ottbmare]

I’m not bashing evangelical Christians at all, I was one for twenty years myself. Where you get “bashing” out of my statement that we ought to get every evangelical registered to vote is difficult to see.

And I’m not defending the democrat voting block of RCs at all. I don’t think they’re real Catholics at all since most of them are in complete rebellion against Catholic Christian doctrine.

I don’t know whose posts you’re reading, but not mine. I’m trying to agree with you and add some additional insights. Clearly this is not working out. Good night.

[ansel12]

I read recently that there are several million evangelicals who are not even registered to vote. If this is true, no wonder we lost the election. A bit of outreach to them would not come amiss.

Evangelicals registered, they turned out and they voted 79% republican, they were the same portion of the voters as in 2008, and higher than in 2004. I disagree with you that they are the problem and that they need outreach. They are pretty much a finished product.

The Catholics are the ones who we need to work on, we need to figure out how to turn them from their loyalty to the democrat party, turning Catholics into pro-life voters is the key to national success, we could even take California back.

[re_nortex]

good post

I've just now gotten around to really reading lentulusgracchus's post (#47) and followed the link to "Southern Fried". I concur that lent's post was indeed very good and quite thought-provoking. The marginalization of Southerners (and Social Conservatives) by the GOP does not portend well.

[darrellmaurina]

Thank you for the ping, lentulusgracchus. I'm repinging to some others in case they haven't seen it.

[WriteOn]

There are quite a few who believe that he government is a charitable organization. They redistribute wealth and thereby paying taxes is charity. Joe Biden thinks this way.

[lentulusgracchus]

Thank you, sir (tips hat).

The original article of Caldwell's appeared in 1998 but is around online -- in the Atlantic Monthly archives, but also elsewhere. I picked the "Southern Fried" article on Hullabaloo because it epitomizes and condenses Caldwell's long thinkpiece pretty well, as well as adding a liberal's reaction to it for more perspective.

It's pretty bad when liberals start quoting so-called "conservatives" and "neoconservatives".

Jennifer Rubin is the successor to Dave "Why-Lie-I'm-Really-a-Liberal-and-I-Hateyouhateyouhateyoubwaaaaahahahahahahaaaa!" Wiegel at the Washington Post's "conservative politics" desk, and she's another neocon much like Caldwell and the Podhoretzes and Kristols. She supports conservative/Tea Party causes, someone tallied up, right about 53% of the time, almost always on economic and defense issues, but the rest of the time she falls right into line with the Moonbats. That's because she shares the urban-liberal prejudice (google "Sarah Palin" + "Commentary", and then cross-reference her with David Frum and www.jewschool.com, to get the full double-barrel treatment) against "Flyover America", country people, country pastimes and pursuits like hunting, stock-car racing, and old-fashioned, "corny" patriotism, and all the array of 20th-century American conservative values. To all those things, urban "neocons", like liberals, react with a visceral disgust that you won't talk them out of anytime soon.

[lentulusgracchus]

I should have added that I pick out Rubin precisely because the Washington Post knows all about "urban conservatives" like her, and like Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, Charlie Kraut, and a bunch of the rest of the "conservatives" who like to skin real conservatives, and especially social conservatives. That's why they gave her JournoList Liar Wiegel's job. They knew she'd criticize Obama's foreign policy and the GM takeover, but leave him alone on the Birth Certificate and social issues.

Then they can pivot and use their liberal chorus to argue that "respectable" conservatives don't doubt Obama's eligibility or the absolute virtue of his black racism.

[lentulusgracchus]

I don’t think they’re real Catholics at all since most of them are in complete rebellion against Catholic Christian doctrine. [Emphasis supplied.]

Which doctrine, the one Before or After? After they started putting long-haired, bare-headed girls with guitars on barstools inside the sanctuary for a "guitar Mass", and performing other gestures of High Unseriousness and "We-didn't-mean-it" congregant-chasing? Which Church are you talking about?

[lentulusgracchus]

Thank you for the kind words.

[Antoninus]

Let's face it. The GOP has promised progress on social and fiscal issues and has delivered nothing but retreat and surrender on both fronts. Who cares if they dump social issues. Social Conservatives may need to dump the GOP first.