Free Republic

Illinois Republicans have just forced state party chair Pat Brady to resign because of his support for gay marriage. What is this, Alabama? Brady, rather famously, came out in support of gay marriage in January of this year, and even made phone calls to lawmakers urging them to support gay marriage legislation before the Illinois legislature. And now he’s politically-dead, killed by a Republican party so permeated with hate and intolerance that even in a moderate-Republican state like Illinois, the GOP just couldn’t stomach having a fag-lover as party chair. This is why I, an Illinois Republican, left my party...

Conservatives often like to divide themselves into economic conservatives who care about the economy, and social conservatives who care about moral issues. But the mother of the post-war conservative movement, Phyllis Schlafly, says that both issues are linked, and that a decline in moral values harms a nation: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/schlafly-gop-establishment-gave-us-losers-dole-mccain-and-romney Schlafly quoted from the article: (Schlafly said the establishment wants candidates that “will only talk about economic issues” and not social or moral issues or even national security issues". “And that’s such a terrible mistake, because those social issues are the cause of the fiscal issue, and they are the issues...

Recently reporter Thomas Edsall - who has spent most of the last 30 years covering politics for the Washington Post and the New Republic - had some advice for the GOP. He draws upon some recent polling data to argue that "the Republican Party can afford to marginalize . . . Christian right leaders because evangelical social conservatives . . . are not going to vote Democratic." Thus, he reasons that Republicans can, as he puts it, "concede defeat in the culture war" in the hopes of picking up more socially liberal voters. Mr. Edsall might want to check with...

Even though I agreed with much of what Ron Paul had to say, all I could ever think is 'this isn't my guy' for president -too odd a demeanor/un-electable- not to mention foreign policy positions that were appalling to a peace-through-strength Republican like myself, particularly statements made re. Iran and Israel. But lo-and-behold, now we have fervent offspring Rand Paul who -while libertarian in his views- apparently saw wisdom in distancing himself from his father's take re. the volatile Muddled East.. and that's when I started listening to him. Maybe I've changed in my hawkishness too- I'd rather have not been involved...

I am wondering about the structure of a third "Constitutional" party. Would it be better to form a party exclusively on a fiscal issues basis? What would be the pros and cons of taking social issues completely off the table? I mean, are there really enough "social issues" in the text of the Constitution itself to warrant making them a permanent policy of a new party and subsequently risking vicious debate and division? I guess I am thinking of the inevitability of Conservatives locking antlers with the "socially" left wing of the Libertarians", who are otherwise fiscally right wing. Shouldn't...

***SNIP*** [L]et's be honest. We had little reason to believe that Romney was truly dedicated to improving our social and cultural conditions -- indeed, that all-important thing called the human condition -- because he talked endlessly about his business experience. Most Americans don't like their bosses and have trouble with landlords and creditors. Talking about one's business experience is not usually a good way to win them over. On election day, it became clear to me that the Republican Party had been led into Purgatory by the Laodicean wing. In case you aren't familiar with Revelation 3:14-17, here is what...

It is time to throw the social conservatives out of the GOP. Look at what they got us — Barack Obama. It was the social conservatives who did it. They insisted the GOP support real marriage and children. To hell with that. I’m getting this, in various forms, from lots of tea party activists. The GOP establishment in Washington is whispering it to each other. They look at Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock and conclude that they, not Tommy Thompson, Heather Wilson, George Allen, Scott Brown, etc. are the problem. It is time to get rid of the social conservatives.What’s...

ST. LOUIS • Newt Gingrich is coming to St. Louis Monday for a Todd Akin fundraiser because he wants “to tell the people of Missouri” that they have the right to stand by the Republican Senate candidate of their choice, regardless of what the party's leaders tell them. In a phone interview today with the Post-Dispatch, Gingrich, the former House Speaker and presidential candidate, said the controversy surrounding Akin isn't the point. “The people of Missouri picked him to be their nominee in a fair fight.” He also warned what others have said: That for the GOP to throw in...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Matt Hoagland, the county leader of a group of young North Carolina Republicans, is busy trying to ramp up enthusiasm for Mitt Romney at the grass-roots level. So there are a few things he avoids mentioning to prospective young voters he wants to woo, including the hot-button topics like abortion and same-sex marriage, which have dominated campaigns past. “Social issues are far down the priorities list, and I think that’s the trend,” Mr. Hoagland, 27, said. “That’s where it needs to go if the Republican Party is going to be successful.” ... Some young conservatives ... continue...

One of my writings this week concerned Fortune 500 corporations that support causes like same-sex marriage and abortion that are antithetical to evangelical Christians and social conservatives. That prompted a request from a reader that I follow up with a post listing corporations that embrace Christian values; that evangelicals and social conservative can support with their pocketbooks. Well, I’ve long known that the Christian business sector is large. But I’ve known of only a few major corporations guided by Christian values. That includes, of course, Chic-fil-A, which started-up in Georgia before spreading throughout the country; which is so unabashedly Christian,...

Washington (CNN) - Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are likely to meet in early May to discuss a Santorum endorsement, his role as a Romney surrogate and conservative policy issues, CNN has learned. John Brabender, a senior strategist for the Santorum campaign, told CNN that Santorum's goal is to have a policy-oriented session in which he tries to find a "comfort level" about the role "social conservatives, tea party activists and blue collar Republicans will play in the campaign and in the Romney administration." Even so, he said, "we are not walking in there with a litmus test. This is...

Rick Santorum dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday. Almost to a column, editorial and news account, the analysis centered on Santorum’s somewhat successful capture of conservative voters. And there lies the mystery. How could a man seemingly so opposite of conservative have entranced so many voters who label themselves just that? The easy answer is that as someone who made his religion such a prominent part of his campaign strategy... religious types who tend toward conservatism perhaps felt they’d found their man. [...] Indeed, if we ignore for a moment how very anti-conservative it...

Peggy Noonan makes some interesting observations about Iowa's Republican primary results, and Mitt Romney's bruising victory. [quote] The Iowa results almost perfectly reflect the Republican Party, which, roughly speaking, is split into three parts—libertarians, social conservatives and moderate conservatives, who went for Ron Paul, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney respectively. The three parts of the party have been held together by agreement on three big issues: spending (which must be cut), taxing (which must be reformed), and President Obama (who must be removed). These three issues have force. Taxes and spending are the ties that bind, the top and bottom...

As Newt Gingrich​ and Mitt Romney​ are emerging and distancing themselves from the pack of Republican presidential candidates, according to more than ten national and state polls conducted over the past week. However, social conservative voters in Iowa, which holds its caucus on Jan. 3, and kicks off the election season, seem agnostic about which candidate can best represent them. This week, two important social conservative groups in Iowa, The Faith and Freedom Coalition and Iowa Right to Life, opted not to endorse any candidate. And a focus group of Evangelical voters conducted by influential Iowa radio host Steve Deace...

Republican Bob Turner won handily over the Democratic candidate in a district that no a Republican has won since 1923. His opponent's vote in favor of same-sex "marriage" in the New York legislature played an important role in the Republican's victory. Every significant GOP candidate for president is pro-life; snip Social conservatives make up a significant percentage of the Tea Party movement snip With 33 Senate seats up for grabs in 2012, the Democrats will have to defend 23 while the Republicans must defend only 10, snip When Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) called on conservatives to declare a "truce"...

was on a very long flight the other day and, to get me through it, I had two books: the new bestseller Of Thee I Zing by Laura Ingraham, and a book I last read twenty years ago, The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth. The former is the latest hit from one of America’s most popular talk radio hosts; the latter is an Austrian novel from 1932 by a fellow who drank himself to death just before the Second World War, which, if you’re planning on drinking yourself to death, is a better pretext than most. Don’t worry, I’ll save...

Gov. Haley Barbour issued a warning to social conservatives in choosing their Republican nominee for 2012: “Purity is the enemy of victory.” “Remember purity in politics, purity is the enemy of victory,” Barbour said. “We can’t start out with the idea out as the Faith & Freedom Coalition that our candidate’s got to agree with me on every single thing. We cannot expect our candidate to be pure. Winning is about unity. Winning is about us sticking together to achieve the main thing.” “Conservatives, religious people, small government people, we are not going to have purity. We’re not going to...

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The only Mormon in the South Carolina legislature is Alan Clemmons, a real estate lawyer from Myrtle Beach with a shiny bald head, natty suits, and a hyperactive Twitter feed. Rep. Clemmons ardently supported Mitt Romney for president in 2008, raising money and rallying political support for the former Massachusetts governor. He is unlikely to do so again. Clemmons says he’s distressed by the distance Romney has kept from the state since departing abruptly for Michigan just before the 2008 primary. And he finds the insinuation from some in Romney’s circle that South Carolina has a religion...

Social conservatives say they're trying to address the problems of family breakdown, crime and welfare costs, but there's a huge disconnect between the problems they identify and the policy solutions they propose. It's almost like the man who looked for his keys on the thoroughfare, even though he lost them in the alley, because the light was better. Social conservatives tend to talk about issues such as abortion and gay rights, stem cell research and the role of religion "in the public square": "Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life, marriage and religious liberty have...

WASHINGTON -- Allegations of a pro-gay takeover, boycotts, embezzlement and terrorist-loving board members. Sounds like a Hollywood version of a conspiracy thriller, but it's not. It's the buzz around this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, the nation's single largest annual congregation of conservative leaders. Conservatives riding a new wave of momentum thanks to the strength of the Tea Party movement and big wins in the November midterm election should be riding high ahead of this year's CPAC,scheduled to take place in Washington on Feb. 10-13. But the conference, which has met for 38 years, has found itself beset by conflict...

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says it will not back down from its decision to label the Family Research Council and other socially conservative groups as hate groups, on par with the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations, for their views about homosexuality. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins recently asked SPLC to retract the hate group designation, but SPLC Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok told The Daily Caller that will never happen. SPLC’s Winter 2010 edition of its “Intelligence Report” magazine lists the Family Research Council as a hate group alongside the American Family Association, the Traditional...

A gay conservative group and some Tea Party leaders are campaigning to keep social issues off the Republican agenda. In a letter to be released Monday, the group GOProud and leaders from groups like the Tea Party Patriots and the New American Patriots, will urge Republicans in the House and Senate to keep their focus on shrinking the government. "On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement," they write to presumptive House Speaker...

So, Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling so quickly that it may soon be journeying to the center of the earth. So, the economy is in such terrible shape that those supposedly untouchable middle class tax cuts may expire. So, Florida happens to have three of the most corrupt politicians in the country running for one of its United States Senate seats. So, what? Instead of my usual weekly analysis of political happenings across the United States, I have decided to take a different approach with today’s article. A few nights ago, I stumbled across a very interesting study conducted...

In the last week, I received e-mails from a number of individuals regarding past votes by presumptive Illinois Republican gubernatorial nominee state Sen. Bill Brady. The e-mails included information which was taken from a liberal blog called The Chicago Lampoon (CL) which features a photo of comedic actor Bill Murray. The information within the e-mails I received concerned Brady recently introducing a bill to deny illegal immigrants state mortgage assistance. Now that sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? But the e-mails I received were not meant to paint Brady in a positive light. The information within these communications were...

Republican Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska announced Friday that she will resign her office July 26, fueling speculation that she intends to spend the next four years pursuing her party's presidential nomination in 2012. Mrs. Palin made her stunning announcement at her Wasilla home with Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who will be sworn into office at the end of the month, she said. She did not take questions from reporters and only cryptically referred to her future plans. In her announcement, she said it "hurts to make this choice," but compared herself to a point guard in basketball. "A good...

Remember Jimmy Swaggart? He was the TV preacher who wept before America after a tryst with a prostitute. "I have sinned against you, my Lord,” choked Swaggart through tears. “I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgiveness." The fall of televangelism in many ways foreshadowed the decline of the so-called moral majority. The Right is now reaping what it sowed. By making social conservatism central to its platform, it left no room in the GOP for sinners. Now we have the Sanford affair. Many on the...

Unless social conservatives were responsible for Sen. John McCain getting the nomination instead of a Washington outsider like Gov. Mike Huckabee or Gov. Mitt Romney, they were not responsible for the GOP loss of the presidency. McCain lost because he had the disadvantage of being a Senator and a member of the incumbents party when the economy was going the wrong way. It was natural for voters to think McCain would continue Bush's economic policies. An outsider might have been able to avoid being held responsible for the economy, particularly running against an incumbent Senator. A Republican governor could have...

(CNN) — Days after national Republicans launched a new campaign to broaden the party's outreach, former upstart presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says the GOP is at risk of becoming "irrelevant as the Whigs." In an interview with the California newspaper The Visalia Times-Delta, Huckabee said the GOP would only further decline in influence should it alienate social conservatives — largely considered the most energetic and loyal faction of the party. "Throw the social conservatives the pro-life, pro-family people overboard and the Republican party will be as irrelevant as the Whigs," he said in reference to the American political party that...

A way forward for a troubled political coalitionAfter their dismal performance in election 2008, conservatives are taking stock. As they examine the causes that have driven them into the political wilderness and as they explore paths out, they should also take heart. After all, election 2008 shows that our constitutional order is working as designed. The Constitution presupposes a responsive electorate, and respond the electorate did to the vivid memory of a spendthrift and feckless Republican Congress; a stalwart but frequently ineffectual Republican president; and a Republican presidential candidate who — for all his mastery of foreign affairs, extensive Washington experience,...

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele should resign from his post immediately, according to the American Family Association’s new online survey. In light of Steele’s regrettable GQ interview, AFA President Don Wildmon asked members if the beleaguered Republican chief should resign from his post, declaring the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland believes “abortion is a choice, and homosexuality is not.” An overwhelming 94% of the more than 74,500 respondents answered Wildmon in the affirmative. Likewise making their displeasure known, prominent social conservative luminaries characterized Steele’s mea-culpa as “very troubling.” Ken Blackwell, who formerly endorsed Steele after withdrawing from consideration for...

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...

December 05, 2008, 1:40 p.m. Enough with the Oogedy-BoogedyReligion, politics, and us. By Shannen W. Coffin Kathleen Parker’s war on religion in the Re-public-an square entered a new phase today. In her syndicated column, she nobly attempted to explain her use of the term “oogedy-boogedy� to describe religious conservatives. It’s not that she is “anti-God.� It’s just that God really shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Religion can inform our values (gee, thanks). But reason, not religion, should inform our public debates. I hadn’t realized religion and reason were mutually exclusive. It seems Pope Benedict hasn’t gotten the memo,...

We've seen a lot of social conservatives upset over today's intemperate attack by Kathleen Parker (Note: she was unnecessarily contemptuous, but her point that "the Republican Party -- and conservatism with it -- eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs" is worth serious consideration).Well, I am a libertarian, so let's talk about the Kathleen Parker of the social conservative crowd: Mike Huckabee.This week, Huckabee called libertarians the "real threat" to the Republican Party... In a chapter titled "Faux-Cons: Worse than Liberalism," Huckabee identifies what he calls the "real threat" to...

To listen to some Republicans, not to mention, the braying of media outlets such as MSNBC, and even, here and there, a few economic libertarians, you would think that traditional conservatives, the defenders of the unborn and the integrity of marriage as a venerable and ancient institution, were responsible for two wars gone sour, over-spending at a level to embarrass Lyndon Johnson, the largest expansion of entitlement spending since the Great Society, numerous cases of GOP corruption and betrayal of the public trust centering around earmarks and political favors and the miserable results in the presidential and congressional elections just...

Four years ago, in the week after the 2004 presidential election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America." Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by "social fundamentalists," the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it...

It was only a matter of time. First Sarah Palin and the Wasilla hillbillies were charged with spending John McCain's political capital faster than they could max out credit cards at Neiman Marcus. Now blame for the Republican electoral debacle has been extended to all the rubes who are said to populate the religious right. Even some right-leaning pundits are getting into the act. Beliefnet's Steven Waldman warned before the election that "religious conservatives will have to grapple with their role in electing Obama" since they supposedly vetoed pro-abortion Joe Lieberman, whom Al Gore found to be a sure ticket...

By McCainiac Let's say you have two candidates, Candidate X and Candidate Y. Candidate X has a very poor track record as a fiscal conservative but is a rabid social conservative whose is solidly pro-life. Candidate Y has a reputation and record as a very fiscal conservative but has a slightly different opinion on abortion than the pro-life party line. Which candidate would win the Republican nomination for President? I think any honest Republican knows the answer to that hypothetical scenario. Candidate X could be George W. Bush. Candidate Y could be Barry Goldwater. When it comes to the Presidency,...

PRINCETON, NJ -- More of John McCain's voters cite his "values" or "views" as one of the main reasons they are supporting him for president today than did so a month ago: 20%, up from 7% in early September. McCain's values and views now compete with his experience and qualifications (26%) as the top draw for his voters.

There seems to be a kumbaya moment occurring on the conservative front, and it’s one that would apply a salve to Senator John McCain’s uneven, unsettled relationship with the religious right. Enter James Dobson, who has at times been blistering in his criticisms of Mr. McCain. The religious right’s more favored candidates — from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to even former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson — are no longer options. Thus, The Associated Press is reporting, in a preview of Mr. Dobson’s radio show tomorrow, that he is amending his views to be more embracing of the presumptive Republican...

<p>There seems to be a kumbaya moment occurring on the conservative front, and it’s one that would apply a salve to Senator John McCain’s uneven, unsettled relationship with the religious right.</p> <p>Enter James Dobson, who has at times been blistering in his criticisms of Mr. McCain. The religious right’s more favored candidates — from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to even former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson — are no longer options.</p>

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP)--Abortion may not be the leading national issue according to the polls but it is a top one to many social conservatives, and Republican John McCain increasingly is going out of his way to make his pro-life views known, even saying at one town hall forum that pro-lifers could count on him being an "active" advocate for the unborn. In at least two town hall forums in recent days, McCain has turned questions not directly related to abortion into answers about his pro-life views. Each time, his answers were one of his biggest applause lines, with many...

Sen. John McCain is making surprising headway with religious conservatives - that part of the Republican electoral coalition he was expected to find the most resistant. For a campaign that Republican critics have called ill-managed, disorganized and message-challenged, the Arizona senator's organization has, from all outward appearances, been doing things right in its appeals to evangelicals and other religious conservatives. In the past week, Mr. McCain won over a major group of social conservatives, thanks to personal appeals, and the campaign has made personnel moves appealing to religious voters. In Denver last week, a meeting of nearly 100 religious conservative...

After nearly 15 years of attempting to describe how the mainstream media has often negatively portrayed conservatives, I have found there are some basic truths which have prompted such coverage. Certainly those who fall on the right of the political spectrum are not fairly represented or reported on by many journalists in the dominant press. However, the dynamics of conservatism and the varied views which make up this broad political idiom has, at times, fostered the coverage it receives...

I started focusing on the political process in the mid-to-late '80s. For as long as I've been involved, it has been generally accepted that Ronald Reagan's success was keyed to his ability to bring the three legs of the conservative movement to stand together -- the foreign policy, economic and social conservatives. Today, I believe the Republican and Democrat establishments would love nothing more than for the social conservatives to sit down and shut up, but they know this demographic can still really impact an election. It is harder for social conservatives to win elections by themselves these days. They...

The more important issue than Senator Obama’s choice of words, is the world view underneath them. By using voter’s adverse economic circumstances to rationalize his cultural beliefs, Barack Obama has reintroduced what has been a defining question in American politics for more than generation: Why do so many working-class voters cast their ballots on social and values-based issues like gun ownership, abortion and same-sex marriage rather than on economic policy prescriptions?These voters — known as “the silent majority” in the 1970s, “Reagan Democrats” in the ’80s, and as “values voters” during the last two election cycles — have long been...

Social Conservatives Warn against Romney as McCain's VP By Penny Starr CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer April 04, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - In a full-page letter ad that will run Saturday in an Arizona newspaper where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will be on the presidential campaign trail, leading social conservatives warn the GOP hopeful against picking Mitt Romney as his vice presidential running mate. "I know (Romney) to be a very dangerous and deceitful person," Gregg Jackson told Cybercast News Service about his reasons for helping draft and signing the open-letter style ad. "He's the only one to establish abortion on demand...

I have been thinking about this for some time and wondered what the folks at Free Republic would think about this. It seems to me that there is a fundamental shift going on in American politics today, one that will not favor Republicans. Let me explain. The Republican or "conservative" movement in this country seems to have grown tired of the social conservative movement. Party bosses and talk show hosts were ready to line up behind Rudy Guiliani when he announced his candidacy in 2007. I remember reading articles about the death of social conservatism as even Pat Robertson endorsed...

Conservatives outside Iowa are rejecting Huckabee more and more once they get past his ability to turn a warm and fuzzy phrase (which is something I always wished George Bush could do more easily). There’s no doubt Huckabee is comfortable in his own skin which is a strong voter attribute for any Presidential candidate. But what about his policy? Come on, conservatives and wake up! Don’t let this Baptist Minister fool you! Huckabee’s record as governor speaks for itself. He is wrong on taxes. He is wrong on illegal immigration (despite his recent cries to the contrary). He was not...

With Mike Huckabee's continuing surge, the Republican Party now has an Iowa front-runner whose religious beliefs are virtually identical to those of George Bush. He's anti-choice, born-again, against gay-marriage, and gets political advice directly from God. So why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem? Actually, that is the problem. The evangelical crowd was fine when it was just a resource to be cynically exploited...

Why does the GOP Establishment fear Huck? Juan Cole's got a bad case of left-wing Huckenfreude: I simply can not tell you how much I am enjoying this. The GOP has been pandering to these stupid bastards for years, and every time I pointed it out I was called “anti-Christian” or something or other. Those of us who saw what the party was becoming were told to shut up, that it was good politics. Enjoy your new GOP, folks. And here is something else to think about- are the evangelicals going to support Romney or Giuliani if you do manage...