Posted on 11/14/2008 8:13:42 AM PST by Mr. Blonde
By now you’ve probably heard: The GOP is becoming too regional, too white, too old to compete at a national level. Democrats look like a merging of the cast of Rent and Up With People, while Republicans look like diehard fans of Matlock and Murder, She Wrote.
Fine, fine. The GOP needs to win over more Hispanics, young people, suburban women. That sounds perfectly plausible. But what does “win over” mean?
To listen to many pundits and analysts, it means Republicans must become Democrats. The GOP has become too socially conservative, and if it wants to win the support of mainstream voters, it will need to become more socially liberal. To be “economically conservative but socially liberal” is the beginning of wisdom for this school of thought.
Or, put another way, if only the party could be more like former New Jersey Gov. and Bush EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, these voices have been saying for years, the GOP would truly become the majority party. Remember the Alan Alda character on NBC’s blessedly defunct West Wing? We were told that his pro-choice stance on abortion would make the Republican Party vastly more competitive in places like California and New York.
The problem is that Alda’s TV character is only marginally more fictional than Christine Todd Whitman. Economically conservative social liberals are the “jackalopes of American politics,” in the words of the National Review Institute’s Kate O’Beirne. The press keeps telling us they exist out there in huge numbers, but when you go looking for them, they refuse to emerge from the bushes.
In fairness, many people do describe themselves this way. Most of the time we simply call them “Democrats.” Those who call themselves Republicans should more properly be called “confused.”
This is not to say that one can’t be a moderate on this issue or that and be a Republican. But the idea that social liberalism and economic conservatism can coexist easily is not well supported by the evidence. For example, in Congress and in state legislatures, the more pro-life you are, the more likely you are to be a free-market, low-tax conservative. The more pro-choice you are, the more likely it is that you will be remarkably generous with other people’s money.
Former Sen. Phil Gramm, the best deregulator of the last 20 years, was adamantly pro-life. Sen. John Sununu, who just lost a brutal campaign in New Hampshire, is a champion of economic liberty and social conservatism. Even Ron Paul, the arch-libertarian congressman from Texas, almost surely would lose his seat if he weren’t ardently pro-life.
One objection is that “economic conservatism” and “fiscal conservatism” are different things. One can be socially liberal and fiscally conservative, in the sense that you’re only willing to constrain your statist do-goodery to the extent you’re able to pay for it. This is certainly an intellectually defensible position.
But politically, this is hard ground to defend. It turns out that people who buy into the logic of social liberalism, not just on abortion but racial and other issues as well, usually find themselves ill-equipped ideologically to say no to additional spending on causes they care about. They even find it difficult to stay Republicans, as we can see from recent example Colin Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama for president for largely ethereal reasons.
It should be noted that it’s also difficult to be fiscally conservative and socially conservative if you’ve jettisoned the conservative dogma of limited government. We saw this in spades as President Bush embraced “activist government” and ended up wildly increasing government spending over the last eight years.
And that should serve as a warning to those, on the right and left, who would like to see the GOP defenestrate millions of actual, living, breathing members of the party — e.g., social conservatives — in order to woo millions of largely nonexistent jackalopes. The GOP would simply cease to exist as a viable party without the support of social and religious conservatives. But not so the other way around. We’ve seen what happens in this country when the passionately religious abandon love for limited government and instead embrace social liberalism and government activism. The results have been good, as in the abolition movement. And the results have been more mixed, like during Prohibition and the Progressive Movement.
The religious right is much more likely to stop being “right” than stop being religious. And secular conservatives and libertarians who passionately believe in limited government should be very grateful indeed that most of today’s religious conservatives believe in it, too.
Bingo.
Why vote for the PSUEDO-DEMOCRAT when you can vote for the REAL thing.
Having a CONSERVATIVE PARTY would DELINATE us from RINOs!!
One objection is that “economic conservatism” and “fiscal conservatism” are different things. One can be socially liberal and fiscally conservative, in the sense that you’re only willing to constrain your statist do-goodery to the extent you’re able to pay for it. This is certainly an intellectually defensible position.
As far as I can tell, this is the Libertarian position.
For the record, I am not a Libertarian. But this option has been open to the voters for decades. Based on the amount of political power held by Libertarians today, I would say that Jonah is exactly right: not many people want to mix these two types of thinking.
—bflr—
I think the Libertarians have been constrained by a lack of clear vision, lack of funds, lack of ballot access, and running vanity candidates like Bob Barr.
Plus, there is the whole idea of throwing your vote away if you don’t vote for a Democrat or a Republican. People don’t want to do that.
I think the Libertarians could capture the hearts and minds of a lot of young people if they did a better job of getting their message out there.
In GOP circles its called, Rockefeller Republicanism.
Giuliani, Romney and Ridge are three good examples of RR`s. A label all three have rightfully earned.
I have some acquaintances who describe themselves that way. They seem to enjoy emphasizing that they are as conservative as I am on these economic and fiscal issues. However, when it comes time to vote, they ALWAYS go Dem.
It's now become almost a litmus test for me. If they can't bring themselves to utter that they are first and foremost a SOCIAL/CULTURAL conservative, then I know they are no conservative at all.
And our branch should be called the REAGAN Republicans....
Were libertarians better organized I think they would eventually suffer the same sorts of splits that the GOP regularly sees. You would find some libertarians who are economic libertarian and then other libertarians who are social libertarian. For the record I think that a conservative party would suffer the same sort of split... economic conservatives versus social conservatives, etc.
“I don ‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party”—when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.
It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?
Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?
Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.
Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent.”
Listen to the man. He was rarely wrong.
We once spent over a week on the North Carolina forum, trying to come up with a definition of "conservative" that included all of us. It didn't work.
I think all political parties that are of any size will occasionally have these problems. One group of people will feel slighted in what the elected officials are doing for them.
Look at the success Obama has had by trying to be all things for all people. Where McCain had trouble because he was on record as having disdain for the religious right among other things.
I like to call them, Liberaltarians. LOL
I should add that this was a group of, at the very most, 20 regular participants. Now try to make a national party out of “conservative”!
What too many are confusing is that either party is built on just one position....ie social conservatism. The left is a hodge podge of special interest groups. Gays, women, union, blacks, etc. The party serves each of their individual demands. All share a common belief that government will right whatever ‘wrongs’ they are suffering from. They look to government for assistance.
When the Republicans win it is a coalition of ideologies. It traditionally is a combination of limited government, low taxes, strong defense, promoting moral/social beliefs. We win when we are viewed stronger on all these issues. We win when a message is communicated that we will make government get out of the way, stick to the original intent of the constitution (limited government and self defense), and promote a moral climate (traditional family, life, etc).
We didn’t lose this year because of social issues, we lost because we are losing the arguments on the fiscal/limited government and foreign policy issues. We let government get significantly more bloated, and lost the edge on foreign policy (too arrogant, war-mongering, etc.) It is part a failure of our elected officials and part a losing effort in the propaganda battle.
If you ask almost anyone, Iraq was a mistake and we have lost our reputation in the world. These are public opinions. As these views became widely held, Bush lost his approval ratings, and the House/Senate switched sides. That is why we lost. We have to rebuild our reputation in those areas to regain power. We have to make a case against the expansion of government and articulate why free markets solutions are superior. We have to demonstrate again that our military solutions and foreign policy positions are better than the other party. We do not abandon the social wing of the party, but rather rebuild the other wings so we have a bigger voting block.
Why not just look at the numbers. McCain got millions less than Bush did in 2004.
So why not get those voters back and grow it from there? But the media never mentions that and never will.
They want to see the conservatives destroyed. If they can convince them to do it themselves at the hands of other Republicans, so much the better.
As a libertarian, I’m pretty shocked at this logic.
McCain surely did seem to be running against his own party. I suspect he convinced many people not to trust Republicans.
When the Republican Party adopts and adheres to conservative, pro-life principles, it will be able to attract a wide, diverse base.
The moderates in the RNC, along with McCain, tried the big tent, Democrat-lite stance and lost. Learn from that and move back to Reagan conservatism. We need to find and support a new group of Republican leaders who will not go squishy on social and economic conservative issues. Money talks so let the RNC know it won’t get your contributions until we see this happening.
All I had to do was watch the Libertarian convention to nominate their presidential candidate - these people will never be contenders on any scale. Too many deal breakers, like soft on the borders, decrimininalization of drug use - just not my cup of tea for priorities. The USA is way beyond small and limited Federal govt. (i.e., the billions wasted in our bloated bureaucracies). I see no way to tame the beast. People aren’t willing to throw their own bandits out of Congress, so where do you go from there? Screwed royally, we are...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.