The major factions within the Republican party are such that a loss of any of them would be politically fatal, and the coalition generally coalesces around the notion that, for lack of a better term, none of them have anywhere else to go apart from the minor parties.

The balancing act, therefore, is a difficult one. Democrats are starting to try to make the occasional appeal to social conservatives further down the ticket, so abandoning social conservatives could have future consequences in state legislatures and House races, and economic and fiscal conservatives would, if marginalized, simply stay home, allowing the Democrats to win by default.

The mistake, however, is in thinking that any one coalition should be singled out for “don’t screw us over” status. To me, it seems like a large circular exercise of clamoring about one’s own victimization… from the highest points of privilege and power they have available to them. And all this situation does is allows the left to move relatively unchallenged politically, as the right continues attacking itself more often and more vociferously than it does its natural ideological adversary.

Granted, I don’t consider myself a Republican (or, for that matter, all that much of a conservative), so I can’t figure out what the whole idea of trying to motivate a national party around issues that should largely be dealt with at the state or local level, but I know that without the social conservatives in the Republican coalition, I will have to get used to a Scandinavian-style welfare state in America, which is completely anathema to my own sense of common decency. For that, I have no real interest in trying to tell social conservatives to take a flying leap, but think all sides should be more receptive to the others, lest we see a remake of this ideological trench warfare happen again in 2010 or 2012.

My guess, however, is that it’s sadly inevitable.

Erick! lol. I guess when a party is defeated like this, their will be the recriminations to follow. Sometimes I believe the Socons complain too much, I guess you do not agree. One thing I am sure of, this diary could have been written as a Mad Lib, why not “Screw the fiscal conservatives?” or “screw the libertarian-conservatives?”

I agree with the first person to reply, although I am a Repubican and a conservative. we do ourselves no favors with these personal attacks. But I will take it one step more, we do ourselves no favors when we divide each other up into specific Republican camps. You mention Bob Dole’s loss, but I agree that part of his loss was the lack of enthusiasm from certain Republicans. You mention Bush the Elder’s loss, yet I agree part of his loss was the lack of enthusiasm from certain normally Republican voters. Who would not in retrospect trade these good and decent men, war heroes both, for Slick Willie?

I agree with you we should not “blame” one particular part of our coalition. On the other hand, if a fair election makes us lose a major part of our coalition, even when our guy is much more on their page than the opponent, then I fear for this party.

It is very simple folks, the reason the liberals (and their but-kisser, so-called conservative lap dogs) try to propogate the myth that social issues are to blame for every Republican defeat is that these are the issues THEY (the liberals) really care about and would like to see abondoned by the GOP.

Look, Keith Olberman doesn’t really give a crap about wether poor black girls in the inner city get a good education, so long as they can have abortions whenever and whyever they want.

The limosine liberals just use economic issues to manipulate the poor into putting them in office so that they can implement their liberal social policies.

Case and point as to why the media is dead wrong here:

If you believe the polls, which after all, ended up being only a little skewed for Obama in the end (exagerrated his victory by just a point or so on average), then the ONLY time in the general election campaign when McCain was winning was just before the financial markets meltdown. You know, the one that was the fault of liberal social engineering dating back to Carter, but that got blamed by Obama & the media on Bush and McCain, who were some of the FEW who actually tried to correct the issue a few years ago? Yeah, that one. Clearly tht sunk McCain. If anything, social issues helped him, as evidenced by the fact that his only lead came after adding a TRUE conservative to the ticket.

One last jab; when they can’t even get same sex marriage past the voters in CALIFORNIA of all places, it is time to admit that social issues are more of a problem for Dems than the GOP.

Or something. Seriously, I’m underwhelmed.

The impulse to blame social conservatives arises nearly every time Republicans fail. They were blamed for the elder Bush’s 1992 defeat, as though he would have won if only Pat Robertson had not spoken at the Republican convention. They were blamed for losses in the House in 1998. And now they are being blamed for McCain’s rout.

Really? Anyone with a brain recognized that Clinton owed his presidency to the Perotistas. And ’98 was due to the backlash over trying to impeach said criminal. I guess if you want to say that perjury, subornation and obstruction are ‘centerist’ issues, you can. As far as the universal outcry against social conservatives…

Max Boot?John Avlon?Kathleen Parker??Christine Todd Whitman????

Seriously, the only names here that anyone knows about, nobody cares about. But this does open up an interesting topic: Does the GOP need to be more centerist-or is it already?

Some seem to want to allow the clueless and the demegouges to portray opposition to ‘gay marriage’, opposition to judical activism, opposition to abortion on demand without restriction as ‘right-wing’ positions. And those who support them say that they are adopting ‘conservative’ positions. I would say all of the above ARE centerist positions. And allowing the left and the lame to define your ideology is not terribly productive.

But that’s just me.

then where did all the Blue Dog Dems come from? They were chosen to run for their CONSERVATIVE creds, whether that be fiscal, social or national sec., or all three.

Once again, conservatism is NOT the problem. SELLING OUT conservatism for pragmatic ends IS the problem.

In 2002 and 2004, Republicans ran hard on social issues and the courts — and scored victories at every level of politics. In 2006 and 2008, they left those issues off the table, and got walloped. It follows, naturally, that the social issues are to blame for the Republican defeats.

It just cuts to the heart of the issue. McCain was THE model centrist according to all the pundits who now want to kick socons under the bus. We followed this model with Bush Sr, Dole, and now McCain. We came up a crapper every time. W ran as a conservative (either so- of fi-), but outside of the GWoT didn’t govern as one. Even running pretending to be a conservative instead of actually being one was sufficient to shift enough votes to his column to win the election.

A lack of knowledge and sarcasm, I’ll probably keep going over your head.

The point (trying to keep it simple) was that the 2002 and 2004 elections were mostly a referendum on the WoT and the qualities of the two respective candidates, not a battle over social issues.

We need our policy and platform to be Constitution based.Every issue is addressed on way or another by the Constitution. We need to educate voters on on the Constitution. As an example, gay marriage is an issue that, Constitutionally speakly, should be left up to the states. Whether you agree or disagree with the concept of gay marriage, if you understand the Constitution, you can see it is an issue that should be left to the states. To me, this approach would bridge a lot of gap that exists between conservative, moderates and independents.

We need our policy and platform to be Constitution based.Every issue is addressed on way or another by the Constitution. We need to educate voters on on the Constitution. As an example, gay marriage is an issue that, Constitutionally speakly, should be left up to the states. Whether you agree or disagree with the concept of gay marriage, if you understand the Constitution, you can see it is an issue that should be left to the states. To me, this approach would bridge a lot of gap that exists between conservative, moderates and independents.