Posted on 12/05/2011 6:27:36 PM PST by Fred
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday compared his war against reproductive rights and gay rights to the Civil Rights Movement, and attacked Newt Gingrich for putting social issues "in the back of the bus."
"In terms of social issues [Gingrich] has been married three times, he has two divorces, he's admitted to infidelity," ABC's Christiane Amanpour noted during an interview with Santorum. "Should voters hold that against him?"
"I think character is definitely an issue," Santorum opined. "I've been married 21 years, I have seven children. That's a factor that people are going to look at and should look at when it comes to the person you are going to have lead the country."
"Is he a real conservative with the social values?" Amanpour asked.
"I think that Newt has consistently put those, let's say, in the back of the bus," Santorum replied. "He's never really been an advocate of pushing those issues."
(Excerpt) Read more at videocafe.crooksandliars.com ...
I never said it wasn’t true. I said it doesn’t make any sense.
Gingrich is a poster boy for what’s been wrong with the Republican Party for the last thirty years. The wrongs that led to the rise of the Tea Party.
If Newt is so worthy of Tea Party support, why haven’t they been with him all along?
Seems to me what this whole conversation points up more than anything is that Tea Partiers are shifting with the wind, just like almost everybody else in the Republican Party.
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I'm pinging this not because of the article but because of the discussion - and JimRob is chiming in as well. Many posters are saying things along the lines of "the candidates need to shut up about social issues because independents and Republicans don't care about them, they only care about taxes and money and spending" etc. The animosity towards social conseratives is vicious. The claim is even made on this thread that the only way a Repub can win is to be silent about social conservative issues. The weird thing is that this is a lie. Not true. Fails every time it's tried unless you live in Massachusetts.
That myth is pushed every election season: “If only Republicans would go left on social issues, millions of Independent votes would magically swing their way!”.
It just isn’t true.
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Absolutely!
That “lean left” strategy didn’t work so well in Massachusetts last year......
April 8, 2009
New Mass. Republican Party Chairman says party will no longer oppose same-sex “marriage”, abortion, other “social issues”
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/gen/09b/nassour/index.html
Nov 4, 2010
Mass. Republicans lose ALL statewide & Congressional races
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/govt10/election10/general/results_statewide.html
Nov 5, 2010
Mass. Republican Party’s RINO strategy a big part of election losses in top state races
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/govt10/election10/gop_strategy/index.html
If they're so quick to surrender on "social issues",how can they be trusted to not surrender again on MORE issues?
Lie. Your scorn and contempt for social conservatives is blinding you.
Let me rephrase:
The only people to whom the social issues matter that much in this election cycle
That is what is said every year:
"Set aside social issues, just for this one election! We need to focus exclusively on _________"
That is the pattern that always gets repeated.
Ignoring social issues is equal to surrendering to leftist positions on social issues, as those are the positions which are currently entrenched.
And with abortion - a social issue - innocent pre-born babies are killed. Is that fact truly of lesser importance to you than money?
Social Conservatism seems to have always failed, as the culture has moved continuously left over the past 80 years.
In your own mind only.
Nobody said that the fights worth fighting would ever be easy.
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Hey! :)
Perhaps, but there is this:
From Wikipedia:
A Southern Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich converted to Catholicism, Bisek’s faith, on March 29, 2009.[145] He said “over the course of several years, I gradually became Catholic and then decided one day to accept the faith I had already come to embrace.” The moment when he decided to officially become a Catholic was when he saw Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to the United States in 2008: “Catching a glimpse of Pope Benedict that day, I was struck by the happiness and peacefulness he exuded. The joyful and radiating presence of the Holy Father was a moment of confirmation about the many things I had been thinking and experiencing for several years.”[146] Gingrich has stated that he has developed a greater appreciation for the role of faith in public life following his conversion, and believes that the United States has become too secular. At a 2011 appearance in Columbus, Ohio, he said, “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”[100]
So be it.
Good luck winning if you manage to run off the rest of the conservatives.
JimRob makes some great points on this thread - thanks for the ping...
For example, he has promised to sign immoral, unconstitutional "fetal pain" legislation, given the chance.
When a politician's campaign rhetoric isn't consistent on core matters of principle, and doesn't line up with his actions, always believe the actions, not the words.
Fact is, Newt Gingrich won't do anything to stop the daily butchering of thousands of helpless, defenseless little boys and girls in this country, or put this free republic back on its moral foundations.
“There remains the one standard that has not yet been universally used, namely, the choosing of candidates on moral grounds. A nation always gets the kind of politicians it deserves. When our moral standards are different, our legislation will be different. As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest itself in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism. Contemporary history proves that modern political leaders, devoid of a moral inspiration and relying solely on a mass basis (might makes right), proves ineffectual in time of crisis." -- Fulton Sheen, “COMMUNISM and the CONSCIENCE of the WEST” -1948"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate — look to his character." -- Noah Webster
He’s not perfect, and he’s not my first or second choice.
Pushing socially liberal R candidates is always a losing strategy. Social liberals in the R party or at any rate “not Dems” are so addicted to social liberalism aka as “immorality” and so hateful of social conseravatives that they’re willing, over and over, to lose elections just to give us the finger.
The question is not his “perfection,” or that of any other candidate.
The question is what is non-negotiable to YOU.
Since the protection of the God-given, unalienable right to life is the first reason for the existence of government, and the first duty associated with the oath, it is, as far as I’m concerned, non-negotiable. Because, when it comes to life and to equal protection, there can be no gray areas. The individual person is either alive or dead, equally-protected or not.
If a large mass of Christians would take this step, things would change. If they refuse? Nothing is going to change. We’re going to keep going down the road to national destruction until it is too late to stop it.
Perhaps it’s a personal failing, but I fear that we will not have a country if Obama is reelected.
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