Posted on 11/14/2008 6:21:09 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
Four years ago, in the week after the 2004 presidential election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America."
Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by "social fundamentalists," the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.
At the time, this idea was roundly attacked by many who were convinced that holding on to the "base" at all costs was the way to go. A former speechwriter for President Bush, Matthew Scully, who went on to work for the McCain campaign this year, called the book "airy blather" and said its argument fell somewhere between "insufferable snobbery" and "complete cluelessness." Gary Bauer suggested that the book sounded as if it came from a "Michael Moore radical." National Review said its warnings were, "at best, counterintuitive," and Ann Coulter said the book was "based on conventional wisdom that is now known to be false."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Christine Todd Whitman is free to join the Rat party any time she chooses. She effectively governed as a Rat, anyway.
Hey Christy, Social Conservative did not give us GWB with 30% approval ratings....
Christine Todd Whitman is a Vichy Republican.....
Chsty...go join the democRATS. We don’t want you here anymore.
What would these men do?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2132000/posts
“The Republican Party can either stand for smaller government, lower taxes and freer people, or it can rot in hell.”
John McCain was the "social moderate" candidate.
Christine is making the woefully mistaken assumption that without social conservatives (and Palin) McCain would actually have won.
Au contraire. Without anti-abortion and traditional family voters, McCain would have barely registered a blip on the electoral screen.
She may think we’re an embarrassment to the GOP, but in fact without us there is very little difference between her wing of the party and the Democrats—just a question of degree.
If the GOP has been “taken over” by “social fundamentalists”, then chances are its because they vastly outnumber the hedonists, making it their party, not yours Christine.
Yes, Christine. That's the problem, in a nutshell.
Such an “I Told You So” piece.
Maybe we should just change the name of the GOP to Democrat. We can be the “stealth” party. That will fool them.
How'd that end up working out, anyway? Anybody know...? ;)
RE : “alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate”
Thats great. The media got us to drive out anyone that believes in capitalism, so now they need us to drive out the remaining Christians.
The media picked McCain, NOT ME! I never could stand the guy. Now we get these lectures.
Sigh........I can see now that the only way to show these doltish muddle-brained village idiots that without social conservatives they would literally be like the Whigs......is to just let them sink on their own. If we stopped voting for the "lesser of two evils" & let them try to win with their moderates - they will lose so big that they will be vanquished in the wilderness forever. We have got to stop "enabling" these fools.
"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
Correct, in fact to take it a bit further, she could argue he may have been elected had he change his party affiliation to D instead of R. She may consider herself a Republican I do not but, she is far from a Conservative and that suits me just fine.
Yeah, I saw this POS in a print copy of the Post this morning.
Don’t waste your time. It’s not worth reading.
DO remember the names Whitman and Bostock, though. No more votes or support for EITHER of them. EVER.
We did that. TWICE, now ('06 and '08).
And they still haven't learned!
The Republican Party had been taken hostage by "social fundamentalists," the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research.
There is one issue that binds people who tend to be Republican - restrain of government power. Everything else is a distraction. Todd and these guys are BIG GOVERNMENT enablers. THEY are killing the party.
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