Social Conservatives Need Allies Too
By "people ask me", I mostly mean, I ask myself.
I'm a social conservative, but not just a social conservative. I'm still for the usual conservative Republican positions: less government, lower taxes, freer trade; fighting radical Islam, containing Russia, peacefully annexing Mexico, and so on. I'm certainly not in the position of many Catholics, who agree with the Democrats' position on everything but the social issues . I want the Republican party to succeed, and if that means getting Republicans with positions I don't like elected in places I don't vote, then I'm all for that. That's politics.
Also, I want to make the case for social conservatism in a productive way. I want social conservatism to be a successful part of a successful Republican coalition, and I find that many of my fellow social conservatives do not share that goal. Rod Dreher is a good example; his position is that social conservatives should abandon the Republican ship, and... basically float around until the Democratic party lets us clamber on to theirs, whenever they feel it is in their interest to do so. David Kuo said the same thing when he said that evangelical Christians should abandon the whole political game, and said it just in time for 2006 . The popular Catholic apologetics blogger Mark Shea has taken an interesting tack; he has spent five or six years now saying that to support Republicans is morally suspect at the very least, and then complains when Republicans say it's social conservatives' fault Republicans lost.
I can see why many socially non-conservative Republicans would say, enough with these people already!
Now, I do think that the bad economy and the mismanaged war had much more to do with Republican losses than Terri Schiavo or stem cells, and I'm not sure many people would argue with that, as far as it goes. But social conservatives bear some of the blame for the losses still, because they didn't show up in sufficient numbers for the most socially conservative electable candidates in 2006 and 2008 (can you back me up, Gelman?). I want them to show up in 2010, and I want enough social non-conservatives to show up to get us to 51%. Is that so wrong?