Excellent point.
The attitude I got for daring to dissent on one hot-button issue pretty much pushed me FURTHER away from the position held by the folks who pretty much labeled me a RINO for DARING to have a different opinion than them.
Two other articles I found to be very informative for us came from TechCentralStation:
South Park Republicans:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/764345/posts South Park Rising:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/789569/posts One sentence from the second column is critical:
"The Republican party cannot hold its current majority without this increasingly powerful caucus. The party can continue to adapt and prevail, or splinter and lose."
There can be a very solid anti-Left majority in the country - but the problem is, there are condescending people on the right who drive away many of these folks who don't like the Left at all, but at the same time will read "Maxim" or "Cosmo", listen to folks like Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony, and who enjoy pop culture just fine, thank you very much.
How do we reahc the folks who do not like the control freaks on the Left, but who also have a healthy skepticism of the moralists who are on the right?
By proving to them that we are human. One case at a time.
One sentence from the second column is critical: "The Republican party cannot hold its current majority without this increasingly powerful caucus. The party can continue to adapt and prevail, or splinter and lose."
Even the most basic electoral math makes it clear. A disaffected "South Park Republican" irked at the party enough to not vote for it is far more likely to vote for a Dumocrat than an aggravated "cultural conservative". If he does, that's a two vote swing instead of merely one vote.
I have friends who voted less than enthusiastically for Bush in 2000. They don't have the same visceral disgust I do at the thought of voting for a Dim, some even voted for :spit: Sinky.
-Eric