Posted on 11/07/2008 8:25:32 AM PST by ikeonic
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, there is an unofficial litmus test for abortion in the GOP. You could be an advocate for all the bedrock values of the GOP but if you don't toe the party line to a T on abortion, you are unelectable and persona non grata.
You must be a social conservative first and foremost. No exceptions. Fiscal conservatism is a nice bonus and must be talked about, but deviation on abortion is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Take for instance, Rudy Guiliani, who is personally opposed to abortion and would appoint strict constructionist judges, but is not sufficiently anti-abortion to please the moral purists who insist that you must agree that abortion should be a criminal act equal with murder.
Rudy's campaign failed for other reasons, primarily poor campaign strategy, but it's clear he never would have been acceptable to social conservatives and might have caused a walkout at the convention if he had been the nominee, even as VP. The reaction by social conservatives to talk of McCain selecting a pro-choice VP, led most vocally by Rush Limbaugh, was loud and clear.
Said Mr. Limbaugh just weeks ago:
"The minute you say that conservatism includes people who are pro-choice, you've destroyed conservatism because conservatism stands for "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness." Without life, there is nothing else here, and if we're going to sit around indiscriminately deciding who lives and who dies based on our own convenience, that's not conservative. Individual liberty. The essence of innocence is a child in the womb who has no choice over what happens to it. Sorry. If we don't stand up for that person, if the government doesn't, then nobody will."
According to the Limbaugh definition of a conservative, Barry Goldwater was not a conservative after all. Goldwater, Mr. Conservative, was pro-choice on the basis of personal freedom and individual liberty and became increasingly frustrated by the rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s. Goldwater made no secret of his distaste for Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, whom McCain once called "an agent of intolerance."
Gerald Ford, the first to feel the wrath of the Religious Right, came out of the closet as pro-choice after he left the White House and said some very revealing things to Larry King back in 1998:
KING: At the Republican convention in Houston [in 1992], you guested with us. You sat there and watched Pat Buchanan make a speak -- went on after it, and you turned to me and said, what's happening to my party?
What happened to your party?
FORD: We did not conduct ourselves really wanting to win. You cannot win a national election, neither Democrat or Republican, if your candidate and your philosophy is on the extreme right on the one hand, or extreme left on the other. The Democrats lost the presidential election with McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, because they were to the left of center. The Republicans will not win if they pick a candidate who was identified as an extreme right candidate.
KING: Didn't they [the pro-lifers] take over your party, though?
FORD: They hadn't better, if they want to win.
I think we've got to have, in the Republican Party, a big umbrella, so that people on the right, people on the left and people in the middle can work together. Now, that doesn't mean they agree on every issue, and abortion is one where there is significant difference. Betty and I are pro-choice, but we can work with people who are pro-life on the broader issues involving Republican philosophy.
KING: But when they say, Mr. President, that's a moral issue; it's not discussible and we have those -- we've had them on this program, might be called on the religious right who say, we're not going to be in your party, that's how big an issue this is?
FORD: Well, if that's the attitude they take and they have their own party, they won't win, and their impact in the political arena will be negligible.
KING: In other words, pragmatically, they'd elected Democratic?
FORD: That's right. No question about it. Now, I've been criticized by, I've forgotten who it was, on the basis that I don't have the proper family values. Well, Larry, let me be very frank with you. I think Betty and Gerry Ford have good family values. KING: Why were they criticizing you?
FORD: Because we're pro-life -- I mean, pro-choice.
KING: Just for that reason, they...
FORD: Yes. They say, we don't have the right moral values. We don't understand the issue. Well, my point is: we've had 50 years of healthy, wonderful married life, raised four fine children. I think our family values are pretty good.
Now, I'm probably going to take a lot of heat for raising this topic. But it must be talked about.
For as eager as the social conservatives are to celebrate the defeat of gay marriage in California (which was expected), they sweep under the rug the fact that South Dakota just voted down a statewide ban on abortion. If even South Dakota doesn't have a majority of voters who oppose abortion, aren't we guaranteeing defeat in national elections if we insist that abortion is the foundational issue on which there can be no disagreement? Do we want to be a party that only wins states like Mississippi and my home state of Louisiana (where it remains to be seen if an abortion ban will be enacted)?
I'm not saying social conservatism isn't important. It is. But shouldn't our first test of a candidate be to verify that they are a solid fiscal conservative? Fiscal conservatism shouldn't be a nice bonus, it should be a non-negotiable principle of the Republican Party along with promoting self-reliance, individual freedom and local governance wherever possible.
The reason Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 is because we failed to live up to our own principles of fiscal conservatism and federalism. On this much, McCain was spot on. Instead of reining in government spending, we added a new entitlement and went on a spending binge. George W. Bush is a fine social conservative and did an adequate job on national security (after listening to McCain on the surge), but was a trainwreck as a fiscal conservative. When voters wanted the GOP to rein in spending, they were instead trying to rein in Terri Schiavo's husband.
I am proud to be Republican, the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Goldwater, Reagan and McCain. I disagree with social conservatives not because I'm a RINO or liberal but because I have a genuine difference of opinion just as Goldwater, Ford and Guiliani. The next person who calls me a RINO will get a mountain of Goldwater quotes in return.
I personally belief that abortion should not be criminalized because it won't stop abortion and it isn't an act of love to punish a woman with what I believe is a poor choice, but a choice nonetheless. I think Roe v. Wade was a terrible decision on Constitutional grounds which should be overturned and the issue should returned to the states. It's a moral issue that should be decided by the democratic process at the state level just as we do with gay marriage, polygamy, incest and number of other moral issues. Abortion was never, ever a federal issue prior to 1973 when the Supreme Court made it a federal issue. I would like the people to have a chance to proclaim the legal status of abortion (as the people of South Dakota just did) rather than 9 people in robes in D.C. The only way abortion should be a federal issue is if the people elect to amend the federal Constitution as we did with alcohol and Prohibition.
There is going to be a great discussion about this in the weeks and months ahead. It's already started on Little Green Footballs.
People who are pro-choice should leave the party. They are Democrats and they don’t know it. Us social conservatives don’t need libertarians to tell us that government is too big and taxes are too high. We already know that. We agree on those issues, but they want to make us pro-choice. More libertarianism of “liberty for me, but not for thee.”
I still don’t see where in the constitution it says people have a right to choose murder.
A “Conservative” who supports abortion? Isn’t this an oxymoron?
Oh that's right they already did. Let them move in with Boob Barr...
People can be ‘pro-choice’ all they want. But supporting RvW and advocating for communist judges to keep it is a deal breaker. For them, there is no place.
If you want to think it’s okay to kill the unborn, I can’t change that. But if you think I’m going to give up the Second Amendment and property rights just for you to have that ‘right’, you’re smoking something.
If you’re ‘pro-choice’, make your case for it. Fight for it at the local level. Do whatever you need to do. But stop being an advocate for the communists.
Which party do Democrats who don’t believe in abortion go to?
When the baby has a “choice” I’ll be for it.
Ah, the false dilemmas invented by those clever Communists. There is no one in this country who is against “choice”, just as there is no one against “gaiety”. It’s not “pro-choice”, it’s pro-abortion, pro-infanticide! You ain’t fooling no one.
AMEN, AMEN, and AMEN!!!
“Pro-choice conservatives”
They support abortion, are anti-gun, pro-gay and spend your tax dollars like drunken frat boys pumping quarters into foosball tables, but they prefer to be called simply (clearing throat) “conservatives”.
Don’t ask me why.
There is a party. They’re called Libertarians.
100% correct!!!!!!
Rush is only partly right when he says "Conservatism wins everytime it's tried"
Fiscal yes it's true, but Social Conservatism (a.k.a. Christian Socialism) on the other hand repels
Case in point, Embryonic Research, which was on the ballot in Missouri and New Jersey
In 2006 In Conservative Missouri it was fought as a moral issue yet it still passed by a large margin,
Yet in 2007 in Ultra Liberal New Jersey it was fought as a fiscal issue and ended up being soundly defeated.
Fiscal should come 1st, don't like abortion, don't have one, don't like what's on TV, DOn't watch. All this should be a hearts and mind issue not a federal one.
Meanwhile if you don't like the spending on a particular program, try not paying your taxes, see what happens.
Funny, the most ardently pro-life are often the most fiscally conservative too. Think Tancredo, Hunter, Pence, Paul, Sessions, etc...
Sorry, but abortion is not an area for compromise. It is the destruction of innocent children.
Republicans can agree to disagree on other social issues, such as gays, because at least in those cases, the people involved are consenting. The baby doesn’t get a “choice”
Is there any reason why we can't settle for a Reagan-type that is fiscally and socially conservative? Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal come to mind.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“If you’re ‘pro-choice’, make your case for it. Fight for it at the local level. Do whatever you need to do. But stop being an advocate for the communists.”
AMEN!!! Roe v. Wade is un-American.
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