Truce or Surrender: The GOP and Social Conservatives

Indiana governor and presidential prospect Mitch Daniels caused a stir - complete with broken crockery and multiple spit takes - when he suggested that the GOP should declare a truce in the culture war until we have resolved the survival issues confronting the US (those being the Little Depression and the War on Terror). The guys at Powerline took a look at the prospects of such a "truce:" Truce or Consequences

PAUL:Daniels is pitching the notion that we may need a truce in divisive culture war controversies in order to deal with "survival issues" such as terrorism and debt. But Michael Gerson argues that Daniels is being naïve here. He asks: "Just how would avoiding fights on unrelated social issues make Democratic legislators more likely to vote for broad budget cuts and drastic entitlement reforms?"

Clearly, avoiding such fights would not produce that result. But it might well enable Republicans to become and remain more popular with moderate voters. And this, in turn, might give Republicans the majorities necessary to implement budget cuts and entitlement reforms.

JOHN: his is an interesting political question, I think. Over the last couple of decades, countless media/political voices have urged Republicans to abandon social conservatism on political grounds, i.e., the need to appeal to upscale suburbanites. This has always struck me as odd, since the social issues have consistently represented a net gain for Republicans--which is why, I assume, liberal commentators are so anxious for Republicans to abandon them. So in the past, my view has always been that Republican and conservative politicians should keep the social issues as one leg of the proverbial three-legged stool.

The present moment, however, represents a departure. It may well be that a consensus exists in favor of reduced federal spending and economic power that dwarfs any plurality on the social issues. So should conservative candidates forget about abortion, gay marriage and so on? The answer depends, obviously, on the particular district in question.

SCOTT: The Republican Party was founded in opposition to "those twin relics of barbarism -- Polygamy, and Slavery." Emmer's response may or may not be good politics, but serious concern with what John refers to as "the social issues" is deeply embedded in the principles and the history of the Republican Party.

I think Scott's last point - that the GOP has always had a strong moral component - is a good one, as John's point that the only people really pushing for a lowered emphasis on social issues are liberals who hate being on the wrong end of cultural questions. And, it's hard to imagine the GOP going into an election without strong support from social conservatives. Would Democrats try to win an election without unions or the urban poor or illegal immigrants? Of course not.


The problem for fiscal conservatives like Daniels is that they are not comfortable discussing social issues. Does anyone really care what Mitch Daniels thinks of gay marriage? I don't. Most people simply don't want to have to worry about that stuff, and would just as soon not have the government involved in social issues at all (or, at least, as little as possible). But, too many prominent social conservatives are too happy to give ready ammunition to those who would say the GOP wants to pass meddling legislation rather than grant them their freedom to live as they choose.


Here's a quick look at a set of the most prominent political social cons from the last 10 years (talk radio guys and cultural conservatives are not really part of this group). Is there a word that comes to mind when you look at these guys?

Dr. James Dobson

Gary Bauer

Randall Terry

Pat Robertson

Ralph Reed

Can I hear a "Yuck!" from the congregation?

Now, this is not a call to denigrate these gentlemen. They've all done good work in support of their various causes. Dobson and Robertson, especially, have real fund-raising clout, have built impressive organizations and are (well, in Robertson's case "were") media-savvy operators. They paid for their microphones and, by gar they've used 'em.

But, you know what? Sometimes these fellows, and some of their cohort, have gone out of their way to court controvery, to point fingers, to declare that this or that group is the laltest cause of the decline and fall of civilization. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, except it can be a real turn off for the millions of people out there who, in addition to not wanting the government in their pocketbooks, would also like the government to stay out of their bedrooms. And, too many political social conservatives have given every indication of being a little too interested in what is going on behind closed doors.

Now, I know what people are going to say. The MSM unfairly portrays social cons as grim visaged Puritains. Yes, that's true and yes that's damn unfair, but...is it a surprise? I hope not. So why play into the worst stereotypes available by cosntatntly pushing forward the same grumpy old men as your spokesmen? Why resort to frankly embarrassing statements such as parsing out which Telle-tubbie is gay?

I also know that the Left's endless reliance upon the courts to put across social change that would never be accepted without a court order is deeply unfair and a betrayal of constitutional government. But, why must we reduce every Supreme Court nomination and GOP presidential campaign to Roe v Wade? We've had decades of GOP politicians dutifully learning the ins and outs of Roe, Casey, and Cathcart. To what end? Republicans have put so much intellectual and political energy into its social conservatism that everything else has been at least partially crowded out. And many GOP politicos have been needlessly hurt by the strict emphasis on social issues. Did a tortured soul like Larry Craig really have to go on the record with those gay marriage votes, which he had to have known would come back to bite him someday? Did the Northeastern fiscal conservatives who were blown out of office in 2006 really have to take so many hard votes just to satisfy social con voters who denigrated them as RINOs anyway?

Moreover, social conservatives have not exactly acted as helpful members of the GOP coalition. Look at what happened to George W Bush. Social conservatives never had a president who gave them so much of what they demanded. W was a real pro-lifer who always spoke out in favor of pro-life causes. He took the hard road and declined to allow federal funding for new stem cell lines, earning him the unfair sobriquet of being "anti-science." He used his faith-based initiatives to bring religious non-profits into the government grant sphere. There was no stronger friend to Israel. There was no Republican president who appointed better judges and justices to all levels of the federal courts. No one took the role of comforter-in-chief more seriously. No president ever spoke more sincerely about his faith and the continued strength he drew from the Bible. And, I truly believe he was doing God's work when he led the doomed political effort to save Terry Schiaivo from the legal system that abetted her death.


And what happened?

Everyone threw a fit when he nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, something Obama's allies would never do against the mediocre Sotomayor or Kagen. Worse, when W tried to move forward on agenda items important to fiscal conservatives - I'm thinking of FreddieMac/FannieMae reform, Social Security reform, vetoing S-Chip - W took a lot of heat and received absolutely no help from the social conservatives to whom he had offered so much. If you are a Bushie like Daniels, is it any wonder if you look at social conservatives and see an interest group that demands total obeisance without offering support to their allies when their policies are up for a vote?

The Anchoress has often asked her readers "how do you receive a good?" The question is a good one, and more difficult to answer than many would like to think. Bush gave social conservatives a lot, and they repaid him with an increased stridency that - along with the out-of-control spending by many in the GOP caucus - helped end the majorities in the House and Senate. Remember, it was the fiscal conservatives who were hurt most in 2006 and 2008, but it is fiscal conservatism that has brought people out to Tea Parties and reinvigorated the GOP, which was flailing in the early months of Hope&Change.

The GOP is ultimately a party of limited government. That means not just limited in financial scope, but also limited in social scope as well. Too many social conservative leaders have gotten too used to the idea of approaching each election with a to-do list and then bemoaning any failure to check off all of their little boxes. How the hell does it help the party or the country when we are facing, once again, the question of whether or not Mitt Romney's Mormonism will prevent him from getting out of the primaries? Why do we need to know what Mitch Daniels - a guy who has succeeded in governance by doing the exact opposite of what the Democrats have done, maybe there's a lesson there? - thinks of abortion? Why don't we simply commit to reaffirming the Establishment Clause and promise to get government out of the social issue business? I don't know, seems a lot simpler than what we have now.

Maybe we don't need a truce, but we certainly need a break from Big Social Conservatism as much as we need a break from Big Government.