I could get to like a liberal republican party.

We've got Romney, who's a big fan of social welfare.
Now we've got Condi who's preety enlightened for a republican, you know, pro-choice et al.

Amazing how quick republicans can flop away from their core values. Keep up the good work guys.

I love how one side criticizes the other for not having their opinion, then when they do something that comes around to that opinion they are branded idiots and flip-floppers.

So when you actually get what you want after screeching about something, you say the other side is an asshole for giving it to you.

Posts like the above are so moronic... none of the motivations are about the actual issues, those are just stand-in topics for "us" vs "them".

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I have to agree with you.

But I wasn't really going for flip-flopper. I was visualizing the republican party as a fish out of water, flopping around.

Just trying to demoralize you a bit. Plus, the biggest single issue with the republican party is social conservatives. The more politics seperates itself from religious doctrine, the better our political system will work.

I am not a Republican, and I remain totally moralized.

It used to be that the Republican Party was the "liberal" party. It was the Party of Lincoln after all. Southerners couldn't vote for the party for over a hundred years because of its "liberal" stance towards blacks and its Northerner focus on business and economic issues.

Then came Nixon's "Southern Strategy" where he realized that there could be a holy alliance between fiscal northern conservatives and conservative southern "Dixiecrats".

Reagan finally lured the South into the Republican Party fully with his total embrace of social conservatives in the Religious Right. Before Reagan, Carter was the last Democrat to count these people as his supporters. Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election because he embraced the evangelical crowd.

Recently, however, the Republican Party has realized that its strongest, most loyal voters are the social conservatives. The biggest problem in U.S. elections is voter turnout and social conservatives can be relied upon more than any other group to consistently come out and vote. Even though the hardline social conservative issues are a big deal for only a fraction of the population, it is that fraction that is a determined voter.

What disturbs me about the Republican Party is that now they have "loyalty oaths" and "litmus tests" to determine Party "purity". The Tea Party movement has demanded this kind of solidarity from the voters and candidates on the right and have punished candidates who do not toe the party line. The fiscal conservatives have lost their voice in the party now. The small government, libertarian Northeastern Republicans have been ousted by people who want the government to embrace their conservative religious and social views -- sometimes with very big government solutions to problems.

The corporate donors to Republican candidates love this situation because social conservatives don't give a crap what kind of political largess and paybacks are given to businesses as long as their social agenda is being addressed. This explains why the Republican majority Congress spends so much time on passing abortion bills and talks about things like encouraging prayer in schools.

So yeah, the OP sees the Republican Party in the right light. It has become a party that has monolithic talking points and views on subjects. There aren't many pro-choice Republicans any more. If you want to tap into the social conservative money and get those core values voters, you have to parrot the social conservative line on all their issues. Condi Rice can afford to be pro-choice because she isn't running for office. Any candidate does so at his or her peril because the social conservatives will attack in the primaries.

Ito Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So yeah, the OP sees the Republican Party in the
> right light. It has become a party that has
> monolithic talking points and views on subjects.
> There aren't many pro-choice Republicans any more.
> If you want to tap into the social conservative
> money and get those core values voters, you have
> to parrot the social conservative line on all
> their issues. Condi Rice can afford to be
> pro-choice because she isn't running for office.
> Any candidate does so at his or her peril because
> the social conservatives will attack in the
> primaries.

A lot of words, but their conclusion would not have Romney as the nominee if correct.

> A lot of words, but their conclusion would not have Romney as the nominee if correct.

It all depends on voter turnout. That is why you see Romney trying to NOT be an enemy of the Obama base.

This is why the Republicans scored big during the interim election in 2010 -- because when voter turnout is low, the social conservatives are the only fired up part of the electorate that reliably come out and vote every time.

Romney has bent over backwards to say that he is a social conservative. He has embraced all of the talking points down to the letter this time. He has had a political religious conversion since his run against Ted Kennedy for Senate when he was "to the left of Kennedy on most issues" (his quote not mine).

You are right that there were more conservative candidates on the primary ballots and Romney is certainly not the religious zealot that Santorum and Bachmann are. The fact that he beat them only proves that the far right conservative wing of the party is still a fringe group.

However, when it comes down to the election when the voting public is split down the middle 50/50 as it has been for years, the Republican candidates have learned that their only hope of winning is to get the social conservatives on their side.

Are all Democrats pro-choice? Does the Democratic party mandate that they be that way?

Ito Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > A lot of words, but their conclusion would not
> have Romney as the nominee if correct.
>
> It all depends on voter turnout.

Not anymore... he is already the nominee. Turnout for that mattered earlier.

He is a non-Tea Party candidate for a party you are arguing must pass litmus tests and genuflect to the Tea Party heads. But then we have Romney as the nominee, which doesn't square with that. If your essay was correct then he wouldn't be the nominee, it would have been Santorum.

My essay does square for that. Romney used to be wishy-washy about his social conservative views (probably because he doesn't want people questioning his Mormon background).

This election cycle is preaching the same fire and brimstone as the rest of the party.

My point is that the Republican Party now has to toe the party line on social conservatism. Romney is doing that.