Posted on 08/07/2007 3:53:12 AM PDT by monomaniac
As the Republican National Committee (RNC) wrapped up its four-day annual summer meeting in Minneapolis over the weekend, some leaders were left wondering if the party is straying from its conservative stance on social and religious issues.
"Evangelical and pro-life Catholics are a critical part of the GOP's electoral coalition," James Bopp Jr., an Indiana member of the RNC, told The Washington Times. "The GOP cannot win in 2008 without their enthusiastic support. It remains to be seen whether the GOP is moving away from them. Whether the GOP is doing so will be determined by who is nominated for president."
Most RNC members either swore they would not let the national party distance itself from religious and social conservatives stands or saw no indications of that happening.
"Not as long as I'm in this party," longtime Oklahoma RNC member Bunny Chambers told the newspaper.
Michigan Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis said the party is not drifting from its social conservatism.
"The religious Right and social conservatives are still a very big part of the party and will be for a long time to come," Anuzis said. "The Democrat policies clearly are antithetical to what religious and social conservatives believe in. The Left that controls the Democratic Party is very much pro-choice on abortion and anti-traditional marriage."
MARTIAL MONK wrote: A dozen years ago you would have been tossed overboard because, judging from your writing, you support food assistance for the needy.
Courtesy Comment: I suppose that the die-hard (my way or the highway) self-serving bully’s can try to cleanse the party of all that do not tote the perceived ideals of a hard-nosed conservative.
Should this actually happen only a few pure bloods would be left, making them a small minority, unable to affect much or any of government in a democratic way
But in my lowly estimation, eating our young just to prove a point will only make us a permanent minority.
Yes, I do support food assistance to the needy as that is biblical.
I took my turn in the barrel so to speak several years ago.
I went to South America and worked with the poor and I do mean extremely poor, for five very rewarding years.
I saw things that make me sick to this day.
Many of the things that make me sick are some of the same things that Democrats are doing to this current congress.
Stealing votes is something you might expect to hear of someone doing in Cuba, Venezuela or our good acquaintances in Mexico City.
No, I am not ashamed to support food assistance to anyone as I have Jesus on my side in this fight.
BTW, I quit the Democrat Party back in Jamul Carters presidency to join in with the Republicans and have never felt out of step with the party or majority of the base.
I do not believe a few hard-nosed bullying hot heads have any means of excluding me from whatever party I want to be registered.
MARTIAL MONK wrote: The process is messy, even brutal, but in the end it will come out with a vision of America as it should be for the next eight years. Some will be disappointed and we will lose some people but in the end we will have a general consensus of the issues the base thinks important.
Comment:
I suppose that I will always be somewhere in or near the base, unless believing in God, Country and Family no longer qualifies as being conservative enough.
That's very disingenuous.
The only reason a "values voter" or "social conservative" would give a hoot about federal judges is due to their stand on abortion.
The "values voter" or "social conservative" is by definition a single-issue voter, which is abortion, though occasionally with some equivalent concerns about whether a Presidential candidate is "born again", and very often with an obsessive concern about a candidate's personal and private marital issues, including whether that candidate's wife has been photographed in public with her cleavage revealed.
"Values voters" and "social conservatives" frequently get so obsessed about an infracting candidate that they have and will literally rip the most scurrilous and mendacious libels from leftie and Socialist web sites and post it here on FR as truth. It doesn't matter how untrue that propaganda might be, so long as it creates a smokescreen for the "social conservative's" actual but hidden malice toward the candidate, in particular because of their self-constructed fantasies about the candidates personal and private marital life (which they actually know nothing about, though they'd never admit to that).
Strayed from the conservative stance on social and religious issues? No. Strayed from the conservative stance of fiscal and government issues? Most definitely.
You're full of it. EVERY social conservative I know is also an economic conservative. In fact, Republicans that aren't social conservatives are almost always liberal period.
Further, if you think a justice can be strict Constitutionalist and uphold Roe or that Giuliani would ever nominate a judge that overturned it, you're a fool.
Work from within the party to promote conservative candidates. Never vote Third party or democrat. Those are my “core principles”.
In this world, you strive for (as did the original Ronald Wilson Reagan, btw) 80 or 90 percent of what you want.
Other than that, you must work from within the party framework to groom the next generation of small government candidates.
I have no admiration for Mr. Specter ... and was sorely disappointed that the Bush team chose to support Specter over the conservative Pat Toomey.
“In the current two party system, where are they going to go?”
No where. They’re going to stay home
Pure BS! I'm a social conservative and while I would never vote for someone who advocates abortion on demand as a Constitutional right --- like Hillary, Obama and Giuliani --- there are many issues beyond Roe v Wade that drive my conservative politics. Most social conservatives I know believe in a broad range of issues that drive their politics.
Anyone who advocates comprehensive liberal immigration reform, anyone promoting gay rights, anyone who advocates gun control, anyone who supports liberal global warming bunkum or any candidate who supports expanding the welfare state and raising taxes, along with any candidate who believes government is the end all to solving the problems facing America today, will never get my vote.
If you read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and throw in the Federalist Papers for good measure, who'll get a better understanding about what the Founders had in mind for our Republic. And abortion on demand is not a right you will find in the any part of the Constitution or the DOI. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are at the very core of our basic human rights. The Founding Fathers believed a right to life was at the top of the list of fundamental human rights. If you don't believe that, you're a heathen.
I see you still have disdain for social conservatives, as you preach your politics of liberal inclusion for the GOP.
There are more than two parties, although the parties other than Republican and Democrat haven't historically been successful in elections.
Nevertheless, if people feel that the principles to which they strongly hold have been abandoned by the primary parties, they may choose to go third party or just stop voting altogether.
If that happens enough, one of the third parties may gain strength and become a dominant player.
I am a practicing social conservative. Why would I have disdain for people of faith such as myself?
Not from what I've seen. You've always condemned social conservatives for not being inclusive enough for your tastes when it comes to liberals like Giuliani. IIRC, you will vote for Rooty Toot should be somehow secure the GOP nomination. Btw, being a social conservative has nothing to do with "religious" faith. Social conservatives aren't necessarily church goers, but in most cases they are fiscal conservatives. Just like Reagan was.
Only in primary elections ... not in general elections running against a democrat. Anyway, that's just my opinion. You will vote anyway you choose to. And that is as it should be.
It may, it may not. Incumbents are usually hard to get out of office, and once you put a liberal in office they have many ways to consolidate their power, and they won't take responsibility for their own failings, they will of course blame it on the RINO they replaced for a while and then others when that no longer works.
If the conservatives in the Republican Party let RINOs lose, the party leadership doesn't usually change it's approach, it starts saying that in order to beat the Democrat that now holds the office they need to run a "moderate" Republican that can appeal to more swing voters and pull them away from the incumbent Democrat.
Here in Ohio, the RINOs are in control of the party leadership. They have the votes within the party to set the party's agenda and to use the party's power to support other RINOs.
Those RINOs aren't going to relinquish that leadership just because they might lose a few of their members. Those in control are likely secure in their positions and would rather rule the minority party than be an outsider in the majority party.
To uproot them from the party leadership, you need to either allow so many RINOs to lose that you give the liberals tremendous power over your government for a very long time, or you need to vote them out in the primaries.
You want to scare RINOs. Tell them you vote in every primary election and you vote for party committee member positions as well.
That's what you posted over at Wideawakes, or as JimRob calls it, "WAnkers.net, a Brit led social liberal abortionist site." LOL
Shouldn’t it be “Has Strayed”
Interesting.
I agree with virtually every issue you mention above, but I'm in no way shape or form a "social conservative" or (even worse) a "values voter".
So why am I not, and why are you?
It is more than a little revealing that you devote your entire final paragraph to a statement about me, the Founding Fathers, the Declaration, etc., and in the end it all points to.... abortion!!!! (Surprise surprise!).
Moreover, you then take a step toward putting words into my mouth, and calling me a "heathen" in the [probable] event that you're right.
Now, getting back to the above, what makes you a "social conservative", as opposed to myself and other non-qualified, plain old "conservatives"?
PS - I'd not vote for Giuliani - even though he does have a demonstrable executive track record in New York - because I'm opposed to not just one but at least three of his positions. One of them is abortion.
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