Reagan had a much better understanding of the GOP tent than that. The social conservative base is necessary but not sufficient to win.
Reagan was solid pro-life and never backed down form it.
In 1980 he recieved a lot of votes from pro-choice Democrats. Why? Because the economy was in such bad shape that they put aside their views on abortion and voted their economic needs.
We’re in the same boat today. The GOP isn’t going to lose a single vote by being pro-life, but they will pick up tons of votes (including those of pro-choicers) by being pro-economy.
Look to 1980 to see what we need to do.
22 posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2010 1:16:51 PM by Brookhaven
Why throw out a red herring argument?
Social conservatism is conservatism, but of course there are many moderates and social liberals that cling to conservatives for economic reasons although the vast majority of them vote Democrat, of course we need some of them, but the actual conservatives are absolutely indispensable, just losing a few percentage points of them spells doom for the GOP.
How many “fiscal conservatives” won without the social conservatives? Aside from Christie and Simpson I can’t think of many over the past 50 years.