discussions on the Will the GOP stand for Life? column here at Redstate. My purpose here is about the fake issue of a GOP split with Daniels’s statement simply being the best example of Repubs being mislead into plating into it and being still too timid on the issue and not yet realizing what a landslide is coming.

Mitch is just one man. The issue is much larger and that is where my attention lies: Life, liberty and how h….he GOP is the only way to preserve it.

I agree that we need Daniels and he is the kind of candidate we need, but he is wrong on thinking a truce within the GOP would help (since their is no war going on with pro-lifers) and that the dem left would honor a truce even if it were a good idea.

thx for comments and Go Cocks! Spurrier seems to have finally delivered superior athletes on both sides of the ball and 3 good QBS, with a world class RB. We look like we can compete for the SEC east, at minimum..

Beat Dawgs next Satdy!

I was excited about Daniels until he proposed this “truce.” I have read that he has been a squish on traditional marriage–even in Indiana where it’s a winner.

I would VERY much like to hear a satisfactory clarification from him.

election cycle in which support for liberal social issues or opposition to conservative ones defined a democratic presidential or congressional majority victory. Of course that is not in that case in some individual local and state races.

The lie that the Left and some libertarians try to advance is that there is a war within the GOP on these matters that the Christian right pushes or that the GOP is worse off for being pro-life and there is ZERO evidence to back that up.

Dem victories:
1976 – Watergate
1992 – Clinton ran to the center
1996 – Clinton was in the Center
2006 – anti-Bush on war
2008 – Obama wins due to bad economy, GOP base uninspired by Bush moderation on fiscal matters and McCain’s timidiy

Being liberal on social issues NEVER a factor in national outcomes

GOP victories
1980 and 84 and 88 Pro-lifers major part of Reagan Revolution
1994 Backlash against liberal dems
2002 and 2004 Pro-lifers big for GOP

the much talked about but rather small group of “fiscal conservatives” is a remnant of the old Republican party last seen during the Goldwater vs Rockefeller battle, Rockefeller was the “fiscal conservative”.

libertarian-conservatives, as you know, are not “socially liberal”. In fact most elected libertarian conservatives in our party are pro-life. libertarian conservatives focus on the Constitutional limits of government to do what it wants with the “little people”.

The question libertarians ask is whether a proposed law is constitutional or not. They ask themselves, am I allowing people to live in freedom or am I about to step on their neck and force them to live how I want them to live?

most of his actual governing ideas. Social conservatives are not the enemy of the kinds of fiscal solutions this country needs.

Liberals and Democrats are, and if we declare a “truce”, they won’t participate in either the truce on social issues, nor smaller government.

the country has no chance either way. For me, I am with the pro-life formula that seeks to save lives and makes possible conservative majorities on other issues as well.

that either stayed home, or voted for Obama to purge white guilt!

SoCon in practical political terms means abortion. There are others, gay marriage especially, but the one elections CAN turn on is abortion and the Democrats own abortion with the young and single and suburban women.

I think the basis of a “truce” with SoCons is, as Reagan did, the assurance from the Republicans that the Republican candidate will not allow the social left’s agenda to advance further. There are very few places in the Country that you could win a general election on an agenda of repealing Roe v. Wade. If you have a strong agenda based on fiscal restraint, even cuts, and strong defense, you can bolster that agenda and your winning coalition by also being for conservative judges, also code for Roe. v. Wade and traditional values, code for a lot of things but usually focussed on gay marriage.

There really isn’t much a President or even a Governor can do about SoCon issues except for their power over judge selection; social issues are almost entirely legislative and judicial. In the states where the two touchstone issues have been tested, the electorate has come down on the SoCon side, but the judiciary has pretty uniforrmly said no and imposed the liberal postion. I think effective Republican candidates realize this and essentially offer peace to the SoCons, especially on abortion. Comrade Obama willfully sought to offend SoCons through exective actions to impose publicly funded abortion; rolling that stuff back is a winning issue for Republicans. Even “moderate” women who are personally pro-choice are respectful enough of the views of others they will not oppose measures limiting or even eliminating measures that offend the conscience of pro-lifers such as taxpayer funded abortion or forcing hospitals, doctors or pharmacists to take actions that offend their beliefs.

Sarah Palin is a darling of the SoCons these days, but when she was a candidate for Lt. Gov. she never much mentioned social issues and was defeated in the primary by a candidate who was very strongly identified with the Social Conservatives, Loren Lemen. When she ran for Governor she ran on her anti-corruption meme and fiscal restraint, not social issues and even though I saw a good deal of her while she was running both for Lt. Gov. and Gov. and while she served in the Murkowski Administration, I never heard a word from her on social issues; she was the standard issue Republican who went to church somewhere sometimes and didn’t have to be told to bow their head during the prayer but that was as far as religion went. The Legislature had passed a parental notice provision that was very controversial and was overturned by the AKSC. Despite pressure from the Legislature to bring it up in a Special Session, she refused to do so. In other words, so long as she was active only in Alaska politics she was content with being identified only as someone not antagonistic to social conservatives.

Now we’ll see how it works out for Joe Miller that he is strongly identified with the social conservative side of Alaska politics and, I believe, would not have been the Senate nominee had it not been for the parental notice initiative having been on the ballot. Democrats aren’t stupid and they’ll be trying to push him as far into the righthand corner as they can while running as far to the center as they dare on social issues. It will be a good test.

In any event, I don’t think there are many states that you can win on a SoCon agenda, but the “truce” that a successful Republican candidate should seek is the assurance to SoCons that s/he is not antagonistice and will take steps to not allow the Left to advance their social agenda. That social position in addition to a strong fiscal restraint and national security agenda wins elections.

I think it was Fred! who said that the big tent is a stupid analogy, what we actually need is a big magnet – to pull us all together, I guess….

I was never a Fred!head, but someone around here has it in their signature block.

Fred! flamed out well before I could decide if I liked or disliked him and could act on it – Illinois tends to be late in primary season – but that quote struck me as expressing what’s wrong with the “big tent” analogy … that is, it’s stupid!

Think about it. What happens in a big tent is usually a staged act or a big brawl depending on if it’s a circus or a boxing match .. and the only elephants you’ll find are those who are trained to perform on cue. Perhaps the Dems have a tent, they’re a bunch of circus clowns …

Mew

weenies that buy the Left’s CONSTANT lie claim that pro-lifers scare off more voters than they keep.

Social cons like me only REACT to false claims against us by ruling class moderates and the left.

more later

I can get behind that!

Kyle I agree with you 100%. The job is getting the message out.

lou

in 2012, the Supreme Court will be gone for decades.

A deal with the fiscal conservative may also save millions of terrorist victims. It may save Israel.

It is crazy to attack Mitch Daniels. Save your fire for the real enemy.

Nobody I know is talking about insisting that a GOP nominee must be talking about social issues like abortion and gay marriage. The problem arises when the GOP nominee insists that OTHERS need to STFU with respect to these issues. This has been the failure in recent history from Jerry Ford thru John McCain. When they fall into the trap of worrying about what others attacking the left are saying is going to cost them, and those others must just STFU, then they lose.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

That is my point. There is no GOP split on the fact that the economy is the emphasis. The fact of the economy makes that plain. Mitch needs a hearing aid.

Whiskey Sours…

1) to anyone who does not understand what I am saying, I am not saying we should back down on social issues as long as they are based on the Constitution. I am only speaking about constantly talking about differences whether real or perceived, and possibly starting a split on the eve of a huge victory we ALL want.

2) some info on the “internet gambling” thing between GC and others and me and others lol. The issue is not internet gambling. The issue goes back to 2006 when the Frist Senate along with Kyle and others in leadership constantly broke their promise of limited government.

The Republicans at that time often overreached and they did enact big government legislation. The result was that Republicans lost both the House and Senate.

At the Time, Frist was considering a run for the presidency. He got some polling out of Iowa that social conservatives would respond favorably to a law banning internet gambling. So Frist, Kyle and some others of unimportance pushed it. They passed this ban on freedom by attaching it to an unrelated safe ports act.

To many this latest big government act became a rallying cry, it showed that the Republicans had lost their trust in Americans. It was not gambling per se that mattered, it was how the Republicans had lost their way and no longer defended liberty. In the end, we lost our you know whats and Frist’s stock collapsed. He did not even run in the primay, his political career was over.

Anyway, GC at times tries to belittle libertarians and libertarian-conservatives by saying all they care about is “internet gambling”. Of course he knows what really happened and why Americans are finally up in arms wondering where their freedom went.