To Attract Millennials, GOP Must Dial Back the Social Conservatism

National Journal ^ | December 9, 2013 | Charlie Cook

[kobald]

Fifty-six percent of Americans ages 18-29 disapproved of the Affordable Care Act, the poll found; when it was worded as “Obamacare,” the disapproval was 1 point higher. And less than a third planned to buy health insurance from an exchange...

..President Obama’s job-approval rating had dropped to 41 percent, about the same as the president’s approval rating among the population as a whole, with 54 percent disapproving. The poll also found that a surprising 47 percent of millennials would recall Obama if they could; 46 percent would not. For a group that has been among Obama’s staunchest supporters, these numbers must be awfully dismaying for the president and his supporters...

..At the same time, any conservative or Republican looking at these same numbers with hope of support for limited or minimalist government must confront other findings that show that while this generation has a healthy--or unhealthy, depending upon your perspective--view of government, millennials also have a profound streak of libertarianism. Specifically, the conservative positions on social and cultural issues that have come to be dominant in the Republican Party in recent years run precisely against the grain of this new generation that is maturing politically.

One national conservative leader recently told me about visiting campus chapters of a national, very conservative organization and canvassing these conservative student activists about issues. Within their ranks, he could not find any that opposed same-sex marriage. Among younger conservatives, the perennial applause line of wanting “government out of our lives” now extends to every room in the house and the ob-gyn’s office as well. The GOP’s strict opposition to abortion and same-sex marriages, along with its other unambiguous conservative positions, severely jeopardizes any progress that conservatives and Republicans can hope to make from their skepticism of the effectiveness of government...

[C. Edmund Wright]

You make a good point. In my early 20’s, before I was a Christian, I came to be pro life based on the biological fact of what an abortion was…..which is, without a doubt, the killing of a baby. This is how we can win this issue…..with biological fact….even among those who will never come to faith. And we need their votes!

Becoming a Christian certainly strengthened this in me - but no Huckatorum spouting self righteousness is what made the sale. Truth did! Logic did! We can make intellectually devatating cases on almost all social conservative issues….while emphasizing the proper role of secular government, which is LIMITED!!!

[mrsmel]

Exactly.

[steelhead_trout]

“I definitely agree this generation is extremely pro same-sex marriage”

---

They only feel that way because it’s hip to do so. Once they marry and have children of their own, that will all fade, and they’ll realize—by and large, what a sham “gay marriage” really is. After, all, what generation was more liberal than the baby boomers back in the 1960s? Sexual revolution, drugs, let it all hang out etc. And they’re the ones who were the biggest Reaganites.

[grania]

For heaven's sake....a conservative GOP that really worked to end Obamacare would own the millenials. They don't want to pay for Obamacare. They want freedom from NSA spying. They don't think Snowden's a traitor. They don't want permanent never go away mental health and medical records. A lot would like to be able to start a small or individual business and succeed. They want to feel some security in the future....it could easily be articulated how the invasion of the US is destroying their futures. They don't like wars for oil and the global empire.

Ted Cruz will win in a landside, if he can get past the RINO backstabbing of conservatives.

[madprof98]

The culture has been brainwashed with a new definition of morality where “discrimination” is the ultimate sin.

Exactly right. And those who "tolerate" anything on earth except morality are the victors if we let this definition continue to go unchallenged.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Ultimately, social conservatives need to recognized that social goals must be achieved through social means (i.e. persuasion) rather than political means (i.e. coercion).

LOL, you must be joking.

There is only one side in this war using coercion, and it ain't the "social conservatives."

Thanks forthe help, noob, but you and the National Journal are full of shit.

[mrsmel]

Huckabee wasn’t a thorough social or fiscal conservative. He believed in that “compassionate conservatism” (which redistributes wealth from the earners to the parasites), and lets convicted murderers go free to murder again. He was no conservative, not what I have always considered to be conservative. Strong on law and order, always balanced with our God-given rights for the non-criminal, and strong on allowing the earners to keep what they make.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You can have economic and fiscal conservatism without social conservatism…it’s just not as sound of a philosophy without the social aspect - and does not function as well. There are also non governmental ways to inject social conservatism into society….and pro liberty stances protect those other avenues….

There’s no need to be absolutist for the sake of being absolutist.

[kobald]

They’ve been dead to me since the Derbyshire fiasco.

What fiasco?

[El Cid]

Leaders lead. They don't run out in front of the latest parade and pretend that they are leading. They lead based on their values.

Currently we are fairly devoid of leaders with long-standing Christian values -- and we are being led around by a bunch of people who put their fingers in the air and go after what they think will make them popular today.

[Trailerpark Badass]

This is from the National Journal, which is not conservtive in any fashion.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are correct, but Huckabee is considered by many…on the relgious right…and the secular left….as “conservative” for one reason and one reason only: he beat the drums of abortion and gay marriage over and over and over and over…..

And that’s the point. He is really a pro life lib.

[steelhead_trout]

“True. Ultimately, social conservatives need to recognized that social goals must be achieved through social means (i.e. persuasion) rather than political means (i.e. coercion). “

---

Exactly. Stunts like mandatory ultrasound will only get you people like Governor McAuliffe, and send younger women fleeing for the exits. And you have to know your audience. Social issue positions that’ll work in Texas or the deep South may not play so well in Yankeeland. Nuance matters.

[El Cid]

... and my people love to have it so...

Jeremiah 5:30-31 A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yeah. No.

[Nextrush]

We had a governor here in PA back in the 1990’s who was Pro Choice on abortion (his health department didn’t inspect the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, convicted on many charges including death of a patient earlier this year).

Tom Ridge was packaged by his supporters as a “fiscal conservative”.

He raised the gasoline tax and other taxes (”fees” for licenses).

Then in 2001 right before he went to Homeland Security in Washington, Ridge signed off on a big pension hike for legislators, state employees and school employees.

The costs of that are enormous.

I view those who sell themselves as “fiscal conservatives”
liberals hiding behind a label they think will get them some conservative votes to win an election.

[C. Edmund Wright]

YOu over reacted to kobold and made a straw argument…...

[mrsmel]

And the sodomites have undermined the democratic process by using the courts to advance their agenda. They have actually spit in the face of the majority who didn’t support them, and our republic, by usimg liberal judges to get what they want. After they win through the courts, they lie claiming popular support, and the sheeple fall for it, because they all want to be on the hip, “winning” side.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are conflating two issues….Ridge was not a fiscal conservative, he was a liar. There’s a difference.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Nice strawmen.

I don't do anything just for the sake of it; life here in God's creation has proven me wrong about a great many things, and proven me right about many more.

I just don't deny what I've learned.