Posted on 04/22/2014 5:26:46 AM PDT by xzins
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned if the Republican Party ignores social issues in the upcoming national elections, then evangelical voters will simply stay home.
The evangelical vote in America has been a key ingredient in deciding who becomes the Republican nominee for president. Polling bears that out.
Yet the social issues near and dear to the hearts of evangelicals are under attack within Republican circles.
A few years ago, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind., wanted to declare a truce on the hot button social issues.
"All I was saying was we are going to need to unify all kinds of people. Freedom is going to need every friend it can get," he argued.
That's the line by some within the GOP who say that the only way the party can get more votes and win elections is by staying away from controversial social issues like abortion and gay marriage.
But Huckabee, who's considering running for president in 2016, told CBN News that ditching these issues may cost the GOP evangelical votes.
"It leaves them at home. They just don't go vote, which they didn't do very strongly in 2012. There were fewer evangelical voters who voted for Romney than McCain. If 10 percent more evangelicals had voted for Romney, Romney would be president right now," Huckabee said.
Nevertheless, many in the Republican Party appear intent on phasing out social issues.
Just this past week, the Nevada Republican Party stripped out all language pertaining to abortion and marriage.
And after President Barack Obama won re-election in 2012, a Republican National Committee document concluded the following: "When it comes to social issues, the party must in fact and deed be inclusive and welcoming."
But Huckabee suggested the GOP might want to rethink that strategy.
"This notion of 'don't mention those issues because you might offend the voters who are leaning left,' you better worry about who are you going to leave at home, cool off, and completely chill out the voters who just will say, 'Well, I really don't have anyone to carry the issues that matter for me,'" Huckabee warned.
Huckabee insists that social conservative candidates will need to stand firmly for their values and convince the party that issues like marriage and abortion are an important part of the total equation.
"I think it's a mistake to think that younger voters are going to make their entire election decisions on a candidate's position on same-sex marriage," Huckabee predicted.
"If a candidate can articulate the reason he's for traditional biblical marriage is because of his biblical viewpoint, then will they hold that against them anymore than they would hold it against a Muslim who won't eat pork or drink liquor? If they do, then the problem is bigger than what the position is; it's why they hold the position," he added.
Good point. I can see that. Big government = power corrupts. A derivative of the “absolute despotism” argument of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration.
Nice speech, but I remember Rick Warren.
It really isn’t that much of an issue. It doesn’t matter if the GOP talks about social issues or not, the media will talk about it anytime it is in the best interest of the Democrat candidate. See the “War on Women” meme. If the media can use those issue to the dems advantage it will be talked about.
If you want to stop it you turn it back on them. When they press you on your pro life stand you admit you are pro life, and believe the voters have the right to know how pro abortion your opponent is. Where does he/she draw the line, 20 weeks, 27 weeks, just before birth, is it alright to deliver the baby and then let it die? The voters have a right to know where both candidates stand. Pull this off a few times and the questions will stop being asked, guaranteed.
We need to start doing this on all the divisive issues. Force the dems to articulate how out of touch and radical their positions really are. If they won’t answer the questions then neither do you.
If you're asking if I'll support an atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Islamic candidate, then the answer is no. Never.
We didn’t lose the courts stole it. Every state that has voted in favor of traditional marriage has seen it over turned by a liberal court. It will be interesting to see if the decision on the Michigan AA course today changes that.
You just made his point. The chances of a small government, lower taxes conservative being pro abortion, anti gun or pro gay agenda are slim at best. That doesn’t mean he has to be circuit riding preacher on the stump when it comes to social issues. If you want to win you need votes and some of those votes will need to come from younger voters who arent really into the social issues, and face it if you don’t win you don’t get to make the rules. You can die on the hill of the perfectly principled, and vocal about it candidate, or you can pick your fights, elect small gov conservatives, hopefully limit the governments intrusion in your life and assume they will be much more conservative on all issues than the alternative. You decide.
This was a big part of the problem with Romney. He simply wasn’t, and still isn’t, credible as a conservative with respect to any of the social/cultural issues.
He wouldn’t get their votes either because he forgave and absolved the sinners asking only that they go and sin no more. That would not be enough for many Freeper “Conservative Christians”.
That was way out of line, and your interpretive statement is a false equlivalency straw argument. Your pharisaical attitude has ended this converstation.
I will not vote for a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-amnesty, big government, socialized medicine liberal. Not even if they have an R by their name. From my list, you can see why I couldn’t vote for Romney.
Stick to your principle of running liberal republicans and keep losing.
Your choice.
/johnny
You’ve got to remember that in 76, 80 and 84, we were in a totally different enviroment vis a vis government gone wild and the trampling of liberties.
you were there, with the same blinders you wear today.
I didn’t say that the candidate wouldn’t be a SoCon. In fact I specifically hinted that a small gov, lower tax and I would add strong national defense canidate would be expected to also be more socially conservative than the dem alternative.
That’s true, but in terms of reviewing the history of the modern morals voter, it’s a reaction to the Nixonian era, but not the “silent majority” of Nixon, but rather the “moral majority” of Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan who really brought it into mainstream republicanism.
During the FDR, Truman, Eisenhower era if a politician had come on the scene touting gay marriage and abortion, they wouldn’t have just hustled him out of the room. They’d have tarred and feathered in copious quantities.
I agree. And he took that doubt about his credibility and then told social conservatives to get lost.
Now his supporters act surprised that social conservatives took him up on it.
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