Republicans in dilemma over "Religious Right"

Al-Reuters ^ | Nov 9, 2006 | Ed Stoddard

[Netizen]

I suspect that the country-clubbers who dominate the Party treat principled conservatives (not just religious ones) the way the Demonrats do blacks: Keep them agitated, but do nothing to improve their lot. They came to me with their scare tactics "vote for me or the Dems will raise taxes and....". This from the Party which refused to push action against Sandy Burglar, which collaborates on legislation with Ted Kennedy, whose ex-Pres. pals around with Bubba Clinton, etc. I sometimes think they don't even want to stop abortion because they can push that button and rally the Religious Right again and again. (I voted for them anyway, because of the war.)

You said so much in that one post.

I suspect that the country-clubbers who dominate the Party treat principled conservatives (not just religious ones) the way the Demonrats do blacks: Keep them agitated, but do nothing to improve their lot.I sometimes think they don't even want to stop abortion because they can push that button and rally the Religious Right again and again.

Those two sentences are key and I think you have squarely hit the nail on the head and driven it home!

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm?? I believe they've already done that .. they pretended to listen - sent me all kinds of polling stuff to fill out and send back to them .. however, THEY DIDN'T READ IT AND BELIEVE IT - AND UNTIL THEY DO - THEY WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE.

[Netizen]

however, THEY DIDN'T READ IT AND BELIEVE IT - AND UNTIL THEY DO - THEY WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE.

I agree.

[HitmanLV]

To be fair, some of the alienated no-show portion of the conservative base were very religious folks.

It is a legit question for us to ask them, and for them to ask themselves, specifically what do they want that we can build a national consensus on.

Their political goals are important, if they are realistic. Stuff that strongly appeals to 1/4 of the electorate, doesn't interest another 1/4, and alienates another 1/2 just won't fly.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

----Stuff that strongly appeals to 1/4 of the electorate, doesn't interest another 1/4, and alienates another 1/2 just won't fly.-----


Now that is wisdom. And true.

[Nancee]

"The party would have to be purged (of the 'Christian Right'),..."

They try to the purge the party of this element, and the party if really done for!!!

Nancee

[HitmanLV]

Just the truth.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

You have to work with what you have. Republican forms of government require people to build commonalities that they can work from. Our governmental system demands that the people find points they can work together on or nothing happens, and things fall apart.

So we build consensus, coalitions, and find points we can agree to work towards.

No factions on the conservative side of the fence have enough power to do it by themselves. Trying to means no convervative vision wins...all lose.

(I suspect the same thing is true on the dem side, or at least it used to be.)

So, what are our commonalities? I would boil them down more or less like this:

A desire for less government intrusion into life.

A respect for life (at least to some degree - pushing for individual rights requires some of this.)

A desire for security from our enemies.

A respect for the goals of the founders and the constitution and what it means.

We all have different interpretations of how these things should be done. A lot of people call for reduced government spending. I see budget cutting without reorganizing and merging Federal government agencies as futile, because most of them are now running too lean, and jobs they should do easily aren't getting done because they don't have the properly trained manpower because they are too many of them with overlapping tasks, and not enough funds to make any of them work well (and too much money being pumped into Homeland Security without rational goals and planning) and conflicting mandates. But my concept would require merging offices sometimes under different cabinet divisions, and that is so politically fraught with turf protecting politics, that I think we'll let the country crash and burn first. Sigh. But if we could bite the bullet, we could decide what we really need, downsize in intelligent ways, and have the programs that remain work well.

Won't happen in the current climate.

Still, that doesn't stop me from agreeing that stupid spending and piling on of new types of government regulation is a bad thing. Commonality. Mutual overlapping visions of how it ought to work give us areas we can work together to get things done.

[jmc813]

Pretty simple, nominate Rudy Giuliani in '08, with a social conservative VP and a pledge (actually a restatement) to nominate strict constitutionalist judges.

Nobody disagrees that Rudy is too dopey to understand the simple language of the 2nd Amendment. Why in the world would you trust him to comprehend the entire rest of the Constitution in nominating a justice?

[truth_seeker]

"Iraqi and corruption were the reasons why the GOP got bounced."

Needs to be repeated.

Not religious Republicans, not rinos.

The idea that if you carve off some of your supporters, you will have more supporters is flawed.

[Paperdoll]

>Iraqi and corruption were the reasons why the GOP got bounced.<

Corruption and THE BORDERS were the major reasons why the GOP got bounced! Unfortunately, now W. is salivating because the leftists will promote his amnesty policy.