The old saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is lost on many Republicans wanting to move the GOP away from its conservative positions (particularly on social issues) in order to expand the party.

Thus, they’re willing to risk losing the bird in the hand (social conservatives) to get this mysterious creature known as the person who is fiscally conservative but believes in abortion so much that they’re willing 10% higher in taxes in order to ensure it.

Many of the people advocating this strategy come from a business perspective so let’s take a look at it from that viewpoint.

In business, they tell you it is 7 times harder and more expensive to get new customers than it is to retain your old ones, why would we think it is any different in politics? Consider that Evangelical Christians cast more than 20 million votes for Senator McCain and consider the pure number of Conservative Catholics and other religious conservatives who did so well. That’s a lot of customers to replace.

Of course, many of these political entrepreneurs don’t know their customers, don’t understand what motivates and what drives them and think they can dictate what are reasonable “compromises” for them to except, never understanding that compromises are the results of two people coming together, not one person proposing something slightly less than his view of ideal and telling the other person, “This is the way it’s going to be.” 

To rebuild conservatism, you must attract new people without undermining existing ties. There’s no way to jettison or diminish social conservatives  that will end happily for the GOP. There are not enough people that you can bring in to make up for all the people you drive out.

Honestly, what seems to drive this argument is a combination of personal over or distaste of social conservatives rather than any hard date suggesting that there’s a huge wave of socially liberal people who will fit well into the party.