[paudio]

President Ronald Reagan’s ideas and Newt’s contract with America

I'm a social conservative, but I wonder if social conservatism was prominent in their ideas. Newt's Contract with America has no mention about abortion, gay marriage, etc. Does it mean we can win if we just put aside social conservative issues, just like 0bama & Co. put aside their socialism?

[Thane_Banquo]

I believe the PBA ban was in the Contract with America, wasn’t it?

[B Knotts]

If there is an immediate lesson to be read from all this, it is that we cannot toss aside principles, or any part of conservatism, to win.

Small government conservatism got tossed aside, and this debacle was the result.

If we toss aside social conservatism, we will find that we will have the same problem.

Selling it is a packaging issue, and is an entirely different problem. You have to find specific issues on which you have supermajorities in agreement, and push those issues.

[Antoninus]

Newt's Contract with America has no mention about abortion, gay marriage, etc. Does it mean we can win if we just put aside social conservative issues, just like 0bama & Co. put aside their socialism?

You'll notice that Obama claimed to be pro-life and even had surrogates out there saying that he was and that it was OK for pro-lifers to vote for him. Also, the homo issue continues to lose in referenda after referenda. Obama and Biden both disingenuously claimed to be anti-gay marriage in the debates and were not called on it. And these issues only came up on one of the debates, you'll remember.

McCain's mistake, among many that he made, was not taking better advantage of that issue. He released one ad about Obama wanting sex-ed for kindergarterners then promptly apologized for it and stopped running it.

The media screams about these things because they know they're effective issues for conservatives. After a few years of Obama and a Democrat Congress, these issues will become even more potent.