but abortion is always the #1 issue the conservatives line up with. don't line up as pro-life, you are instantly a RINO. its the defining issue for that classification. and add gay rights to that.
so take someone who had the other positions you mention - tax cuts, fiscal conservative, pro judicial reform, etc - add pro-choice and/or gay rights to that, and they are instantly branded a RINO. you know it as well as I do, so don't tell me we can define a non-RINO candidate based on "other issues", we can't, we are trapped behind those two issues. that may be OK in a presidential race, but in a state like NY, it doesn't play - there is no massive "silent vote" waiting out there over that.
Sometimes it just isn't worth taking your enemies positions to win. Namely for us, because it doesn't work. From a moral position, it never should.
"so take someone who had the other positions you mention - tax cuts, fiscal conservative, pro judicial reform, etc - add pro-choice and/or gay rights to that, and they are instantly branded a RINO"
From the example given by most specimens of the RINO herd, these pro-abortion, anti-traditional marriage Republicans ARE ALSO pro-tax hikes, pro-bureaucracy, pro-judicial activism, and so on; just at a lower degree than their Democrat counterparts.
So please, don't pretend they are conservative in everything BUT abortion and gay marriage. It's cultural, they reflect the people they live amongst. And most Yankees are socialist-like these days.
That's true. Pro lifers can't seem to cope with the fact that their big issue is a bona fide loser in a state like NY. For me, it's very clear that abortion isn't going away in our lifetimes. Anybody who is hanging on to that idea needs to do some soul searching.