No Party for Pro-Choice Conservatives

ModernConservative.com ^ | 11/7/08 | McCainiac

[ikeonic]

By McCainiac

Let's say you have two candidates, Candidate X and Candidate Y. Candidate X has a very poor track record as a fiscal conservative but is a rabid social conservative whose is solidly pro-life. Candidate Y has a reputation and record as a very fiscal conservative but has a slightly different opinion on abortion than the pro-life party line. Which candidate would win the Republican nomination for President?

I think any honest Republican knows the answer to that hypothetical scenario. Candidate X could be George W. Bush. Candidate Y could be Barry Goldwater.

When it comes to the Presidency, there is an unofficial litmus test for abortion in the GOP. You could be an advocate for all the bedrock values of the GOP but if you don't toe the party line to a T on abortion, you are unelectable and persona non grata.

You must be a social conservative first and foremost. No exceptions. Fiscal conservatism is a nice bonus and must be talked about, but deviation on abortion is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Take for instance, Rudy Guiliani, who is personally opposed to abortion and would appoint strict constructionist judges, but is not sufficiently anti-abortion to please the moral purists who insist that you must agree that abortion should be a criminal act equal with murder.

Rudy's campaign failed for other reasons, primarily poor campaign strategy, but it's clear he never would have been acceptable to social conservatives and might have caused a walkout at the convention if he had been the nominee, even as VP. The reaction by social conservatives to talk of McCain selecting a pro-choice VP, led most vocally by Rush Limbaugh, was loud and clear.

Said Mr. Limbaugh just weeks ago:

"The minute you say that conservatism includes people who are pro-choice, you've destroyed conservatism because conservatism stands for "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness." Without life, there is nothing else here, and if we're going to sit around indiscriminately deciding who lives and who dies based on our own convenience, that's not conservative. Individual liberty. The essence of innocence is a child in the womb who has no choice over what happens to it. Sorry. If we don't stand up for that person, if the government doesn't, then nobody will."

According to the Limbaugh definition of a conservative, Barry Goldwater was not a conservative after all. Goldwater, Mr. Conservative, was pro-choice on the basis of personal freedom and individual liberty and became increasingly frustrated by the rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s. Goldwater made no secret of his distaste for Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, whom McCain once called "an agent of intolerance."

Gerald Ford, the first to feel the wrath of the Religious Right, came out of the closet as pro-choice after he left the White House and said some very revealing things to Larry King back in 1998:

KING: At the Republican convention in Houston [in 1992], you guested with us. You sat there and watched Pat Buchanan make a speak -- went on after it, and you turned to me and said, what's happening to my party?

What happened to your party?

FORD: We did not conduct ourselves really wanting to win. You cannot win a national election, neither Democrat or Republican, if your candidate and your philosophy is on the extreme right on the one hand, or extreme left on the other. The Democrats lost the presidential election with McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, because they were to the left of center. The Republicans will not win if they pick a candidate who was identified as an extreme right candidate.

KING: Didn't they [the pro-lifers] take over your party, though?

FORD: They hadn't better, if they want to win.

I think we've got to have, in the Republican Party, a big umbrella, so that people on the right, people on the left and people in the middle can work together. Now, that doesn't mean they agree on every issue, and abortion is one where there is significant difference. Betty and I are pro-choice, but we can work with people who are pro-life on the broader issues involving Republican philosophy.

KING: But when they say, Mr. President, that's a moral issue; it's not discussible and we have those -- we've had them on this program, might be called on the religious right who say, we're not going to be in your party, that's how big an issue this is?

FORD: Well, if that's the attitude they take and they have their own party, they won't win, and their impact in the political arena will be negligible.

KING: In other words, pragmatically, they'd elected Democratic?

FORD: That's right. No question about it. Now, I've been criticized by, I've forgotten who it was, on the basis that I don't have the proper family values. Well, Larry, let me be very frank with you. I think Betty and Gerry Ford have good family values. KING: Why were they criticizing you?

FORD: Because we're pro-life -- I mean, pro-choice.

KING: Just for that reason, they...

FORD: Yes. They say, we don't have the right moral values. We don't understand the issue. Well, my point is: we've had 50 years of healthy, wonderful married life, raised four fine children. I think our family values are pretty good.

Now, I'm probably going to take a lot of heat for raising this topic. But it must be talked about.

For as eager as the social conservatives are to celebrate the defeat of gay marriage in California (which was expected), they sweep under the rug the fact that South Dakota just voted down a statewide ban on abortion. If even South Dakota doesn't have a majority of voters who oppose abortion, aren't we guaranteeing defeat in national elections if we insist that abortion is the foundational issue on which there can be no disagreement? Do we want to be a party that only wins states like Mississippi and my home state of Louisiana (where it remains to be seen if an abortion ban will be enacted)?

I'm not saying social conservatism isn't important. It is. But shouldn't our first test of a candidate be to verify that they are a solid fiscal conservative? Fiscal conservatism shouldn't be a nice bonus, it should be a non-negotiable principle of the Republican Party along with promoting self-reliance, individual freedom and local governance wherever possible.

The reason Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 is because we failed to live up to our own principles of fiscal conservatism and federalism. On this much, McCain was spot on. Instead of reining in government spending, we added a new entitlement and went on a spending binge. George W. Bush is a fine social conservative and did an adequate job on national security (after listening to McCain on the surge), but was a trainwreck as a fiscal conservative. When voters wanted the GOP to rein in spending, they were instead trying to rein in Terri Schiavo's husband.

I am proud to be Republican, the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Goldwater, Reagan and McCain. I disagree with social conservatives not because I'm a RINO or liberal but because I have a genuine difference of opinion just as Goldwater, Ford and Guiliani. The next person who calls me a RINO will get a mountain of Goldwater quotes in return.

I personally belief that abortion should not be criminalized because it won't stop abortion and it isn't an act of love to punish a woman with what I believe is a poor choice, but a choice nonetheless. I think Roe v. Wade was a terrible decision on Constitutional grounds which should be overturned and the issue should returned to the states. It's a moral issue that should be decided by the democratic process at the state level just as we do with gay marriage, polygamy, incest and number of other moral issues. Abortion was never, ever a federal issue prior to 1973 when the Supreme Court made it a federal issue. I would like the people to have a chance to proclaim the legal status of abortion (as the people of South Dakota just did) rather than 9 people in robes in D.C.  The only way abortion should be a federal issue is if the people elect to amend the federal Constitution as we did with alcohol and Prohibition.

There is going to be a great discussion about this in the weeks and months ahead. It's already started on Little Green Footballs.

[Kevmo]

But you were just saying that one without the other (fiscal without social) led to wingnutism. I dispute that social conservatism leads to wingnutism if a person is lackadaisacal about fiscal conservatism. One is more important than the other.

There’s no dispute that both are important.

[Globalist Goon]

There are many types of republicans who should be excused from the party. This sucker is turning around.

[Fichori]

I’m a pro-choice conservative.

See my tagline.

[Antoninus]

Let me tell you right now. If faced with a choice between a pro-abortion Republican and a (honestly) pro-life Democrat, I'd pull the lever for the Dem.

All other issues may affect the quality of my life. Abortion destroys life.

[Antoninus]

Honestly, if Republicans had brains and guts, they'd take the pro-life and gay marriage issues directly into the Black and Hispanic communities and give the Dems there both barrels. All it would take are some hair-on-fire Black and Hispanic candidates who can preach the message loud and clear. It would eat into the Dem's base like nobody's business.

The fact that they don't do this, but want to attack the base of their own party says to me that the elite immoral-cons are the ones causing the problem. They need to be kicked out of the GOP stat. I'm sick of fighting for their putrid candidates and losing.

[Salvation]

**Pro-Choice Conservatives**

Oxymorn if I ever saw one.