Posted on 03/14/2014 1:15:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via WaPo, compare and contrast. Here’s Mitch Daniels four years ago:
Beyond the debt and the deficit, in Daniels’s telling, all other issues fade to comparative insignificance. He’s an agnostic on the science of global warming but says his views don’t matter. “I don’t know if the CO2 zealots are right,” he said. “But I don’t care, because we can’t afford to do what they want to do. Unless you want to go broke, in which case the world isn’t going to be any greener. Poor nations are never green.”
And then, he says, the next president, whoever he is, “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until the economic issues are resolved. Daniels is pro-life himself, and he gets high marks from conservative religious groups in his state.
Lots of righties took that as a sign that social conservatism would be a conspicuously low priority for President Daniels. Now here’s Rand Paul last week:
[Q:] Right. But it seems what they’re saying is that the Republican Party should stay out of issues like gay marriage.
[A:] I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues. The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues.
Daniels wasn’t calling a truce for electoral reasons, and he wasn’t calling it on behalf of the GOP specifically. Both parties would have no choice but to place social issues on the policy backburner, he argued, because dealing with the national debt before it reached critical mass would consume political energies. (In a sane world, perhaps, but alas, not in this one.) Paul really is making an explicit electoral argument, though. If you want to win, you’d better make room for people who support gay marriage. That’s more radical than Daniels’s position because Daniels’s truce in theory would lift once the country had been set on a more sustainable fiscal course. Paul’s truce wouldn’t. In order to steer the party back towards social conservatism, you’d need to show him that doing so would grow the GOP faster than a more pluralistic approach to social policy would. Good luck convincing a libertarian of that.
True blue social cons like Huckabee and Santorum will have field day with this next year. Social conservatives like Rubio or Ted Cruz, whose political brand is broader-spectrum conservatism and who themselves take a federalist approach to gay marriage, will tread more lightly. Paul’s got some cover on it from the fact that he’s personally pro-life and supports traditional marriage, but then again so was Daniels and that didn’t help him much. I think it all depends on which issues, specifically, he thinks there’s room for disagreement on and how much room there is. Gay marriage isn’t abortion; marijuana legalization isn’t gun rights. As long as Paul holds the line on the party’s truest cultural litmus tests, he’ll probably get some slack on the rest. But that’s what I mean in asking how much room there is: What would it mean to “hold the line”? Would Paul be willing to choose a vice president who supports legalizing gay marriage and marijuana? What about one who’s pro-choice and supports an assault weapons ban? The problem with “truce” statements, especially in the context of making the tent bigger, is that it’s never clear how much bigger the pol in question would be willing to make it. We’ll find out next year.
Boom, there it is, the call to move left. The leader’s call to defeat conservatism.
November 2016 will for sure have a candidate for Homo Combos in the Democrats. Why must the GOP be same of this issue?
You CAN’T be everything to EVERYBODY. The Democrats CERTAINLY aren’t and THEY have no problem getting elected.
If you don’t stand for something, you fall for anything.
Paul is right on most domestic issues, wrong on most foreign ones. Cruz is a better choice, but anybody is better than Hillary.
Bingo! Runt Paul exposes his Liberaltarian roots.
RE: Paul is right on most domestic issues, wrong on most foreign ones. Cruz is a better choice, but anybody is better than Hillary.
That’s a good summary of the way things are in a nutshell.
We don’t need to grow the party. We just need to take it over in the same way that the Marxists / socialists have taken control of the Democrat party and are now fixated on total control along with their fellow RINO travelers.
A lot of people already had voted for Romney, what more does this kook want?
It’s actually about even.
I won’t vote for a pro-abortion or pro-gay-marriage “Republican” on principle.
They won’t vote for the reverse, period, mainly on self-interest.
If this were the Democrat Party, both of us would vote for the other because they have no principles except what each can personally get out of it even if it is against something else they believe in. (examples: unions vs illegal aliens, religious Blacks for social justice and welfare vs pro-aborts and gay marriage etc.) If Democrats were like Republicans, the party would explode into 5 or more factions that would win nothing ever.
Let’s see if Mr. Rand Paul can sell his idea to the Platform Committee at the next Convention.
The outcome will be that the Convention will support the social issues and reject Mr. Paul.
Another Republican moron.
tell Rand to get stuffed
Obama won because of the “free stuff” crowd.
So how about we keep social issues and offer twice as much “free stuff”?
Not that I am for it but let’s see how Rand Paul likes that one!
Yep, but Rand Paul's fanclub here kept INSISTING Ron Paul's kid was the "true conservative" Tea Party candidate, and wouldn't give the ACTUAL Reagan Republican in the race (Bill Johnson) the time of day, forcing him to drop out due to lack of fundraising support. If you didn't join them in singing Rand Paul's praises, you were a "RINO" and "pro-GOP establishment". Nevermind that most Paulbots suck on social issues, national security, illegal immigration, etc.
Once again, it doesn't matter what a candidate's track record is on the issues, as long as he or she screams the loudest that they are king or queen of the "Tea Party".
Sharron Angel, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Justin Amash, Mark Neumann, etc. This election cycle, it's been gay rights advocate/neo-con warmonger Liz Cheney and "Obama's conservative cousin" in Kansas running against proven solid conservatives.
Conservative grassroot voters have to STOP blindly falling all over themselves for any candidate the "Tea Party Express" says to vote for. Hopefully we see a change in the 2014 primary results.
I agree in that Ted Cruz is the better choice. I just don’t trust Rand Paul on some issues.
FURP!!
I hope that wasn’t a cry out for Trey Grayson.
It's at the family and individual level. At the level of pop culture.
As long as a political party continues to tell people they can't do things that society is telling them is fully acceptable--the left will consistently have issues such as gay rights and the war on women to beat opponents over the head with. The change needs to happen in the society and culture arenas first or else you are fighting a losing battle.
I am not saying an alternative to Marxism party has to condone any behaviors but they should simply not address them. Refuse to engage. Don't play the game. When a leftie tries to engage me on abortion, I tell them it's a non-political issue for me.
Not one dimes worth of difference. FU DemocRat Rand Paul.
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