Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock: GOP can't afford to remain hostage to social fundamentalists

Capital Times ^ | 11-15-08

[Knitting A Conundrum]

—It’s all BS. “Social fundamentalist” issues were not on the table this election. McCain ignored them-—

When the GOP cannot motivate the social conservative folk, the people don’t go vote. Sarah got some folks out that wouldn’t have come out otherwise. Moderates didn’t stay home. They voted for Obama, because at least his snake oil was the genuine democratic article, not a GOP imitation.

Real attracts more than imitation. We have to offer a real option, and not an imitation democrat to win. What the article is recommending is more imitation democrat stance.

[chesley]

Absolutely.

And I ddon’t mind them going down. They deserve it.

But America doesn’t deserve Obama. And I don’t mean that in a good way, either.

[WOSG]

” Nor did the Republican ticket lose because “values voters” stayed home. “

Rove said otherwise.

Veterans and the religiously observant didnt show up in as great a number as before.

http://www.texasgop.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9121&news_iv_ctrl=1403
Then there were those who didn’t show up. There were 4.1 million fewer Republicans voting this year than in 2004. Some missing Republicans had turned independent or Democratic for this election. But most simply stayed home. Ironically for a campaign that featured probably the last Vietnam veteran to run for president, 2.7 million fewer veterans voted. There were also 4.1 million fewer voters who attend religious services more than once a week. Americans aren’t suddenly going to church less; something was missing from the campaign to draw out the more religiously observant.

Notably, here is where we weakened ...
“The Obama campaign also made gains among Catholics, immigrants, churchgoers, women and young voters. “
...

I dont think Moderates want mush, they want competence and they want validation for their beliefs:

http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/moderates-want-competence-not-mush.html

[HighlyOpinionated]

Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness

Excuse me? Since when do Republicans want to be anything other than Conservative, Traditional, and Constitutional.

If you want to be something else, go elsewhere. If you don't believe in Conservative Values, then you're not a Conservative. What's so hard to understand?

It's so similar to so many Catholics . . . Biden and Pelosi for instance. They want the "name recognition" but they don't want to follow the Catechism. And liberals in the Republican Party want the name recognition but they don't want to follow the Republican agenda.

Someone has to stand for Conservative Values, and the Democrats surely don't have a corner on that market. Without the Republican Party nearly half of the Voters (maybe more than half in actuality) would be disenfranchised.

[WOSG]

“Before the election I wrote that I thought that the real problem for the Republican Party would be to resolve the differences between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.”

Actually that *IS* the issue. The problem is that Christie Whitman is not a conservative at all, but one of those mod-lib Republicans whose party has moved on.

Christie Whitman represents the Elite-Horse Set- Ripon Society WASP former elite Republican. Most of those in that crowd have migrated to full bore liberal Democratism, as evidenced by how thoroughly the hedge fundamentalists (;-) ) and trust fundamentalists (;-) ) or the tri-state northeast US have moved over to Obama. Call it the Lincoln Chaffee vote.

She wants the GOP to be that faint echo that challenges the Democrats on no fundamentals at all.

Honestly, I *wish* we could get them back, but it would have to be by hitting them over the head with “The Federalist” or having a “come to Reagan” moment for them. Diluting our principles to dishwater wont help the GOP brand but make it mud.

I would urge her to put her views in practice by trying to get elected somewhere on it, rather than by lecturing the rest of the party. Her wing of the party is represented by a few liberal country clubbers who have done nothing for the party since 1976 and are about 0.1% of the electorate. As you note, her rhetoric is divisive and counterproductive. It’s indeed BEYOND alarming that you can have a far-left candidate like Obama make enough feelers to sound more prolife than he is by RESPECTING the viewpoint more than she does. That by iteself is more than half the problem. Why can t she be more respectful and mindful of the values of others even in disagreement?

The real moderates/swing voters are much more downscale and pragmatic and we lost their vote due to Bush’s performance in Iraq and the economy and because Obama promised the moon and we didnt counteroffer or debunk his tax-cut lie. Moving off the prolife dime is probably the worst possible advice to give the GOP. That issue alone makes us competitive with a broad swath of voters not interested as much in fiscal conservatism.

“Speaking of bloodletting, it is absolutely vital that the conservative wing of the party come to a final victory over the moderates or we conservatives simply must leave the party.”

I felt that McCain victory would be vital to the nation, but hard on the GOP. I think you will find that it will be surprisingly easy to run out the moderate influence. Perhaps too easy, in that a hard-right GOP image will only cement the Democrat majority.

We will have to be principled and conservative, but also *smart*, *competent* and *listen* to the people. I go back to my “Moderates want competence, not mush” line.
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/moderates-want-competence-not-mush.html

If the Democrats become the pandering corrupt patronage left-liberal screwballs, then competent smart conservatives can win back a majority.

[WOSG]

Actually, there are 3 Republican Governors - in VT, CT and RI.

We shouldnt be listening to someone who was last elected in the 1990s, we should listen to the current elected leaders.

[Onelifetogive]

On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division. It's long past time for the GOP to do the same.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems very devisive the way they are demonizing the conservatives in the GOP...

[WOSG]

sorry but Libertarians are at least small govt types, Whitman isnt even that.

She just a moderate-to-liberal Republican at this point.

[epow]

The liberal MSM baited the Republicans with their love for McCain only to demonize him after he was the nominee. Never again!!!

We say every "never again" every time we nominate a RINO who was picked by the media, and then we fall for that ruse again the next time.

We conservative Repubs don't nominate a conservative because we allow the media to convince us that we must VOTE FOR RINOS IN THE PRIMARIES BECAUSE A CONSERVATIVE CAN'T WIN. Not one of the 3 or 4 leading candidates in this year's Repub primaries was a conservative, so how did that happen if conservatives are the majority of the party as I believe we still are? IMHO it happened because we conservatives listened to the media and believed that the only Repubs who could win in November were liberal/moderate RINOs like Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Huckabee, etc. Does anyone on this thread think that Hunter or any other real conservative nominee would have refused to attack Obama on his radical far left voting record, his collaboration with known traitors and communists like Ayers and Alinsky, and his extremely questionable financial dealings with unindicted criminals like Rezko and others of his ilk? Or would he have refused to attack Obama for lying about sitting under his pastor Wright's racist diatribes for 20 years without ever once noticing the hateful anti-whitey, anti-Semitic garbage that Wright was constantly spewing in every "sermon"?

Bottom line, if we want a conservative nominee who will relentlessly attack the Dem nominee everywhere that he or she is vulnerable we have to stop allowing the media to pick our nominee, and SUPPORT A CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE IN THE PRIMARY WITH OUR MONEY AND OUR VOTES!

Sorry for all the shouting. I just get bitterly frustrated when I think about how easily we get rolled by the Dems and their media lapdogs over and over again without ever learning anything from our losses.

[Clemenza]

57 million Catholic voters looking for a voice

Most of them (including many of my relatives, sad to say) found that voice in the Obama campaign.

[nathanbedford]

The real moderates/swing voters are much more downscale and pragmatic and we lost their vote due to Bush’s performance in Iraq and the economy and because Obama promised the moon and we didnt counteroffer or debunk his tax-cut lie. Moving off the prolife dime is probably the worst possible advice to give the GOP. That issue alone makes us competitive with a broad swath of voters not interested as much in fiscal conservatism.

There is a lot of horse sense in that analysis. I would add that the Bush administration spent itself and conservatism into moral equivalency with the rats. So we lost the competence argument in Iraq and over the economy. Should we then surrender the moral high ground on abortion? Just what then would distinguish us?

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Christine Todd Whitman is no RINO, she is a liberal Republican. Her father was Webster Todd (1899-1989) who became the leader of liberal Republicans in 1952, as NJ Chairman of the Eisenhower campaign. The two of them have attacked, smeared, and even driven to heart attacks the beleaguered conservative Republicans in New Jersey for 56 years. Time to go.