Conservatives need to understand that moderate Republicans do not think abortion and teaching homosexuality in schools, and passing condoms out in schools are bad things. They are actively against us on the social issues and find it embarrassing to be associated with people who think they are important.
This is a cultural thing—the establishment R’s went to the right schools and know that their friends and profs there would make fun of them if they even trod in those areas. The social pressure in the ruling class to conform in the key cultural areas is almost overwhelming. They would, quite literally, lose almost all their friends and business associates if they went off the reservation. Look what happened to the poor moderate R lady at Komen.
Culturally, conservatives and blue collar dems have a lot more in common with each other than conservatives do with the establishment R’s. Similarly, establishment R’s have much more in common with Barak Obama than they do with us.
Similarly, establishment R’s have much more in common with Barak Obama than they do with us.
Exactly, that’s why the establishment’s candidate always looks like Obama’s philosophical first cousin.
What you say is true for a segment of Republicans who are not social conservatives. However their is another segment who do not trust social conservatives for another reason. As you say social conservatives and blue collar dems have a lot in common, we suspect in economics also. Free market conservatives do not want a candidate who is socially conservative but populist in his economic policy. Kind of like a 1930’s style New Deal Democrat. I do not want a socially conservative hand in my pocket no more than a liberal democrats hand.