Posted on 12/13/2013 9:51:29 AM PST by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
National Review just died a little more in my eyes. They’re becoming like the Weekly Standard.
A real winning strategy.
Fiscal conservatism results in policies that promote social conservatism.
Looks more as if what Bill Bennett called the “coarsening of the culture” is here. And what my generation called “traditional values” have gone the way of the dodo bird.
The liberal popular media and Marxist dominated government schools have done their jobs remarkably well.
If “conservative” students are there already, it is probably heading even lower from here and my bottom line is that far worse than obozo awaits us. And I say, let them have the coming tyranny they have earned good and hard. At my age, my wife and I will most likely be off the planet (probably at the hands of a death panel).
But I am deeply saddened that my children and grandchildren will have to live through the coming hell.
Abortion and homosexual marriages are no go zones.
I am not changing my mind on that to attract anyone.
Young people are more pro-life than they have been in forty years.
Why go backward?
Especially when the Dems are the ones counting the votes in the cities?
That is where we are losing elections.
Ah, basically he's recommending the "Massachusetts model" for the national party! The MA GOP has -- for at least the last 30 years -- been liberal on social issues, to the extent that if a social conservative decides to run, they'll scrounge up a liberal to primary him, and party support goes to the liberal. Their stated position is silence on social issues; their actions speak otherwise.
And look at the electoral success of this method: the GOP currently holds 10%-12% of the legislature, no statewide offices, and no members of the congressional delegation. Way to go!
Without social conservatism, economic conservatism is impossible.
We already know how people vote, and the vast majority of social liberals vote for liberal economics which is to be expected, while the vast majority of social conservatives vote conservatively.
I can’t argue that. There are social conservatives that prove the exception to the rule. Huckabee is an excellent example.
I do claim, though, that the best conservatives are both.
Take the message to the voters and explain WHY these views are the right ones and put all the issues in perspective. There is not reason a voter should agree on 70% of the issues and then vote the other way because of one or two things. Explain the Big picture and why we need to go for limited government. Explain roe vs wade in terms of state rights. Explain gay marriage in real terms of it being a government contract and that govt doesn’t have the ability to define love. Lessen the impact of these issues even if they don’t agree. It’s something our side has been terrible at doing since Reagan, other than Bush. He did a great job in 2000 on the social issues. Be bold but undercut the dems attacks by making it reasonable and not heartless.
So another-words, to get millennials all we have to do is quit being Conservative.
Hasn’t that been the play-book since 1988? Yes..., it has been!
How has that worked for us?
Good gravy, will some folks NEVER learn? How many decades do we have to go down to defeat, before we realize there’s only need for ONE Democrat party.
When do we get a party to challenge the Democrats?
Evidently NEVER.
Take this article and choke on it National Journal.
Same old rot. To win the young we must throw morality down the sewer. Oh, Wait. It’s already there and the kids apparently have no problem with that.
What conservatism needs is someone who can articulate how the millennials would benefit from practicing good old fashioned morality.
If they aren’t willing to accept social conservatism, then they will wind up getting everything they deserve. Not my problem.
Actually. polls and anecdotal evidence show a very strong pro-life stance among Millenials. They are, however, strongly progrmmed to support gay marriage.
I definitely agree this generation is extremely pro same-sex marriage. I don’t think they’re as pro-abortion though. Hannity recently had a panel on of all the younger commentators and when asked about same-sex marriage, virtually everyone raised their hand in support, even the vast majority of the conservative side, or what passes for it among young people.
I think it’s insane, but that’s the morality these kids have been taught from MTV, Howard Stern, etc. Religion is on the decline in this country among young people as it’s declined in Europe, and quite naturally any sense of morality around sex, drugs, etc. will be the first things to vanish from the culture. And I don’t think it’s a case of they think this when they’re 20, and will change their minds at 40. 20-year-olds in the past were never for same-sex marriage. The culture has been brainwashed with a new definition of morality where “discrimination” is the ultimate sin.
It’s still a question of how do the weigh the issues. Are they going to vote for a party that’s going to raise their taxes and bankrupt the country with debt just because they support a perverse form of “marriage” for 2% of the population?
Why would the GOP take advice from journalists?
Then the GOPe can survive without conservatives?
I doubt it.
I want a 3rd party
This is 100% true….but lets consider FR: here there seems to be a tremendous understanding that if you're not so con, you're not a true con….and that is correct.
Where there seems to be a blind spot on FR - is that there are a lot of so cons who also are not true cons. There are a lot of so con "onlies" who are very willing to throw away limited government and economic conservatism…and when they get this pointed out, they put on their pharisee robes and babble about mammon and so forth…..totally missing the concept of property and liberty, which is what we call the sanctity of life OUTSIDE the womb….and like life INSIDE the womb, it too is sacrosanct.
Wait, when did the GOP dial UP the social conservatism? The Romney Campaign? The budget battles? The Cruz or Paul filibusters? I seem to have missed the big dialing up of social conservatism.
Now, if the discussion is about how the mainstream media portrays conservatives as old, white guys who don’t want anyone to have sex, then it might be a discussion worth having.
Agree.
The goal here isn’t to win over millenials by sacrificing principles or “turning Liberal”
It’s to reach out to them on issues where there is common ground to form coalitions in order to win elections, then flip them from libertarian-leaners to Conservatives through logical and reasonable persuasion.
Its all about moderation of tone, not belief or principle. I work with a somewhat younger crowd. They were all surprised to discover, over time, that I’m Conservative. Not because of the views i hold but because of how I I was reasonable in how i present them... as opposed to being an “a@@hole
with a bible telling (them) how to live”, as one described it to me.
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