What I especially like is your note that this is an idiotic sentiment since Abortion was NOT a key issue - neither was the war. This election was a referendum on the economy, which puts the GOP already on poor footing, add an economic illiterate as our standard-bearer and we’re already doomed. Plus, as a party we had fled from any semblance of fiscal responsibility so why would anyone see us as a viable option?

This election had nothing to do with American disliking Conservatism. Bush was many things, and in many ways a great president — but many of the things that hurt him the most were not built on Conservative ideals. McCain’s problem certainly wasn’t his conservatism. Not only that, but there were SoCon ballot initiatives, such as Prop 8 that did carry — even in liberal states like California.

Frum and other squishes want to turn this into a referendum on Conservatism. Obama and his team successfuly made this election about Bush. It was about nothing else.

done with him and elite like him…

move on.

no repentence can atone for the sins of those who abandon conservatism.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the way to get Roe v. Wade overturned is to start a ballot initiative at the STATE level to protect life. Someone suggest starting this iniattive in UT or WY since it had a strong chance of passing. This amendment to the STATE constitution will obviously be challenge to SCOTUS and I am willing to bet $$ that there is no way that SCOTUS will overturn Roe v. Wade. I’ve read the works of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (very liberal justice of SCOTUS) and she agrees that the states have the right to do this. It would be fabulous to have Roe v. Wade overturned, and the decision written by Ginsburg. It’s worth a shot if nothing else.

I don’t expect goverment to solve my personal or economic problems, nor do I expect goverment to legislate away the social promblems of abortion.

What I do expect is my government to be based upon the foundational priciples of “Life, Liberity and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Just as this nation could not endure forever with the scourage of slavery, nor will not endure forever with the scourage of abortion.

Life is a foundational priciple pre-ordained by God. If we throw that away, then then our Constitutional foundation rests upon sand!

…look at all the nat’l elections the GOP’s pro-life (and pro-2d amendment for that matter) plank has cost them:

Reagan ‘80.
Reagan ‘84.
Bush Sr’88.
Congressional Majorities ‘94-’06.
Bush Jr’00.
Bush Jr’04.

Oh, wait, never mind…

…and isn’t Frum a Canuck, anyway? Some nerve.

McCain has a very military approach to religion and social issues: the less said, the better. Have some, and shut up about it.

His attitude toward conservative religious folk hurt him badly the 2000 election, and he really never recovered. Bush I wasn’t particularly religious, and he couldn’t win without Reagan’s coat tails.

Frum might take note of the change amongst Catholics. For the first time that I can remember, their leadership took a strong stance on the politics of abortion, making it more important than any other issue. I’m sure we want to write those votes off, as well as the throngs of illiterate, Young-Earther buffoons amongst us Evangelicals.

I meant to say scourge; I have not had much sleep that last few days.

I guess this election loss is bothering me more than it should. And I should no better than to let things get to me. Not because I don’t care, but because I do have faith that Jesus is in control and knows what’s going on.

This is not the path that OUR party should even be thinking about doing. We should never be ashamed of our Faith, Religion and Beliefs! He says go center and I say screw HIM!

In the words of Conan… If Crom will not help me then TO HELL WITH HIM!

This guy should not be re elected. I vote him as one of the first to be cleaned out!

n/t

We should simply argue that Roe should be overturned because it is bad law. We should then let states decide.

I am small government across the board. That includes abortion. I personally think the government has no right to interfere in this matter which is why I’m pro-choice.

I think there is a vast middle on abortion where many women think abortion should be banned in late trimesters, but think it should be legal in the first trimester and in the case of their health, incest, and/or rape.

We could easily accomodate that middle by simply arguing that Roe is terrible law which many can agree with.

many more social conservatives would have rallied more if they talked more about gay marriage and abortion. Instead they let them media and Obama say this is not the issue, it is the economy. That is just one issue facing my constituents, but many social interest still face this nation.

but he’s talking about homosexual marriage issue. He and his ilk use abortion (which is supported in some form by over 50%+ of the American people), but he and his ilk really want the party to cave on the homosexual marriage issue, an issue that well over 50% of the American people are with the social conservatives, from California to Florida! These GOP types who have dear, dear homosexual friends (and daughters) are the problem with the party. Larry Craig and Mark Foley are the problems. When the Dems have knocked off socially conservative Republicans they don’t do it with socially liberal candidates, they do it with socially conservative (or pretending to be) candidates (i.e. Warner in Virginia and Casey in Pennsylvania).
Once commenter stated how few times McCain mentioned abortion, be it once or twice that is still more than he talked about homosexual marriage. He never brought up that EVERY homosexual advocacy victory has been in the Courts AND that inevitably EVERY Obama judicial nominee will be vetted as to whether they support homosexual “rights”. That was inexplicably left on the table and was clearly illustrated by the swiftness in which Biden claimed to have the same “position” on homosexual marriage as McCain/Palin.
If we want to pick up Senate and House seats in ‘10, one key issue will be homosexual marriage and other homosexual agenda issues. If at all possible, we want to force these “Moderate/Conservative” Dem Senators and Congressmen to cast a vote on these issues. If they vote in favor, they are doomed at the ballot. If they vote against, there funding will dry up (i.e. no kos, moveon, etc. money because that is the KEY issue for these groups).

Frum believes the social conservative issues were the ones that lost the GOP the election. That’s just silly.

We just saw California–CALIFORNIA, mind you–passed Proposition 8 amending their constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, as did a number of other states. Are you kidding me? It’s California. Yeah, social conservative issues are unpopular… in the NYC/DC conservative bubbles.

No, the social conservative issues triumphed (though it’s true that some abortion restrictions failed to pass) and are largely responsible for getting McCain as close as he got. Regular folks simply could not stomach Obama’s radical pro-abortion policies.

That’s also why the “moderate” Republicans got decimated this past Tuesday. Which moderate Republicans beat out the moderate Democrats running against them? I’m genuinely curious, because I don’t think ANY did.

Frankly, far and away the only top issue in this election was the economy. And the only issues that could possibly override people’s concerns about the economy were social conservative issues. You’ll notice that all the elite “conservative” defectors to Obama were pro-choice.

Like I’ve said before, profligate govt spending culminating in the unpopular bailouts destroyed the GOP’s credibility on the Fiscal side.

The SoCon wing did their job and carried their weight. The National Security wing did their job as well.

The GOP failed on the fiscal and economic side, and STILL only lost by ~5 points due to the strength of the national security and social conservative issues.

Anyone who thinks differently is likely… pro-choice.

add this guy to the Leper list?

It’s Frum, Rove and their merry band of numbnuts that led us down this ridiculous path to begin with. I’m sorry, but to hell with all of them. Go away.

Apparently David Frum is ignoring the fact that 3 states - including CALIFORNIA voted in favor of a ban on gay marriage.

Obama sounded like a fiscal conservative to most people, with all that talk of reducing taxes and going “line by line” to eliminate wasteful spending.

McCain’s talk on earmarks fell flat after he supported the bailout bill.

And exit polls, which are accurate this year - showed 20% of conservatives voted for Obama. Imagine if he did not have that much of a conservative vote…

Look at California where Obama won 6.2m to 3.7m for McCain - an overwhelming victory. Yet, Prop 8 passes. Obama won Florida, but the gay marriage ban passed with 62% of the vote. I don’t think social conservatism was the problem.

Also, I don’t remember socially conservative issues coming up in the campaign. I don’t think most voters were aware of Obama’s pledge to pass FOCA and what is in FOCA. I think even a lot of abortion supporters would have second thoughts about some of the goals of FOCA.

This book from 1994 had the subtitle, “A new Republican era has dawned … or has it? Will the Right do what it must to shrink government and strengthen family values?”

A blurb from the Wall Street Journal on the back cover of that book said the author “is brilliant and convincing in making the link between big government–the welfare state of today–and declining values.”

The author of that book noted that some pointed to the GOP’s loss of the White House in 1992 to its opposition to abortion: “Nor, on inspection, does the supposedly hrash and punitive 1992 platform live up to the press’s terrifying descriptions of it. That platform’s antiabortion plank was repeated virtually verbatim from 1980, 1984, and 1988.”

Who wrote the book? David Frim.

I suggest Mr. Frum go back and read Reagan’s CPAC speech:

“I don ‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party”—when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”

And then:

“Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people.

Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.”

Brilliant Frum. Social conservatives win ballot initiatives all over the country, even in deep blue CA & in FL where McCain lost (big in CA). And the arguments he wants to get rid of because they hold us back are THOSE?!

Here’s the thing, my mother is in her 50s. She mends rugs at a plant in North GA. Previously, she spent her entire life in the textile industry. She has very little disposable income. And no matter how hard the Dems try to get her to vote her pocket book she refuses. Why? Because she’s opposed to babies being ripped apart and thinks that people should be able to practice and share their religious beliefs in public spaces. Those ideals will trump whatever handouts the Democrats ever offer her. If you take those issues off the table, she may mentally assent to the idea of capitalism and the unfairness of wealth redistribution, but if you redistribute enough to her, she can be convinced to let that objection go.

And so can I. I’d rather a coalition (if this could ever happen) that is moderate to liberal on fiscal matters and socially conservative (minorities and the religious right). I have very little reason to stay in this party if it abandons its social conservatism. And people like my mother have almost no reason.

what a boob.

Has be been elected to anything? Nope? Of, so he is just another Harvard educated, NE elitist that doesn’t know S * from Shinola and works diligently to demonstrate that with a written record on a daily basis.

He is the type of Republican girly man whose sees Palin and develops a second belly button.

It’s not so much a matter of social conservatives repelling elements of the party away as it is that the social conservatives’ main issues are at the forefront of the Republican Party at the expense of other issues that economic conservatives or political moderates would be interested in. I’ve only been old enough to vote in the last two Presidential elections, but I’ve heard more commitment from party nominees and their staff about the right to life, gay marriage, and embryonic stem cell research than I have about any real salient points about energy policy, the economy, freedom of speech, or defense of the Second Amendment (possibly combined).

The problem is that, while social issues have importance, they tend not to directly impact one’s life in appreciable forms. Most of those issues are individual decisions, rather than things that should be managed by the government, be it through the courts or through Congress. The view of Republicans from the political center is that Republicans seek to actively meddle in their lives at the most basic of levels, and those voters then flee to the Democrats (who do the same thing, but in different ways, many of which don’t get immediately noticed by the average person). It also makes it that much easier for Republican elected officials to use the judgment of the state as a proxy for the individual, turning off libertarians such as myself.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… the lack of focus by the Republican Party on issues that directly affect the average person is one of the reasons I’m not a Republican anymore, and why I voted for Barr/Root in this election rather than McCain/Palin. I know many people here disagree with the way I think, and I can understand their viewpoint, but I could not, with a clean conscience, vote for somebody whom I thought did not have my best interests at heart. I did that once four years ago by voting for Bush, and I vowed not to do so again.

If it makes you feel any better, feel free to put me on your Leper list. I really don’t care if placing social issues on a low priority makes me out of place around here; if that’s what caused myself or someone of my ilk to be placed there, I would consider it less a punishment and more a badge of honor.

To some limited extent, Frum’s right - but not about giving up on the social issues. We need to continue to reach out, but not at the expense of losing our very identity - that’s what cost us this and the 2006 elections. As Frum suggest, the GOP could abandon moral issues, but then, it would lose 25 million or so votes, only to pick up a few million. Doesn’t sound like a good plan - maybe that’s why he was only a speechwriter and not Rove’s right-hand man.

This year was an anomaly, despite Frum’s consternation. We have a sitting President that’s given us 8 years of humongous deficits after inheriting a 250+ billion dollar surplus in early 2001. He’s given us No Child, Prescription Drugs, (almost) Amnesty, a poorly executed War on Terror, and Incompetent managment up and down the government. Plus, the House Newt left us in 1999 has spent like drunken and stone Democrats.

Those are the issues that cost us in 2006 and then again in 2008 (plus, a very weak candidate with a horrible campaign staff). Sarah didn’t cost us, nor did the Religious Right’s stand on things like abortion, gay marriage, the environment, etc.

Our conservative principles have been hijacked by liberal pretending to be conservatives, and our failure to stand up and fight socialist agendas is what cost us.

As soon as the GOP comes back to conservatism, the nation will be waiting with open arms. We are the party of the heartland, but when we desert heartland values, the heartland deserts us.

“How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that “moderate,” “independent,” “maverick” Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?”

Love her or not, Coulter is spot on with this.

…of not bothering to read anything at the National Review site anymore…it has, all too often recently, sounded like a cocktail party at some place like the Center for American Progress than a supposedly conservative group of writers/thinkers…

what none of these “water down conservative values until EVERYONE likes them” squishes don’t seem to understand is that people vote for candidates who strike them as sincere…given a choice between candidate A who has 5 or 6 core beliefs that it’s obvious he/she really believes but which the voter disgrees with on a couple, and candidate B who has a list that more closely matches the voter’s own list but who is as phony (and poll-tested) as a $3 bill, I think a whole bunch of folks will vote for the sincere candidate…someone who actually believes what he says on the campaign trail…

it’s not about trying to make this or that special interest group happy…it’s about showing them that they can trust what you say even if they don’t agree with you all the time…my wife - who is pro-choice and has voted for Dems for President every time since she started voting for them in 1980 - voted for McCain/Palin this time around because Palin connected with her…and not because Palin got squishy and tried to make herself sound like she agreed with my wife on every issue…anyways, sorry…hope that wasn’t too rambling to understandable, but I’m just bloody sick of the Frums and Noonans of the world deciding for me what kind of candidate I should support…

btw, I’m not religious at all…don’t do church…I just know how important the SoCons are to the nation and the history thereof…something a lot of Beltway Heads seem to have forgotten.

You know the old saw, “the religious right needs to go!”

His mode of thought has been rejected by the base. He’s lost in a ’70s whirlwind of post-Rooseveltian guilt which puts him out of touch with the mainstream.

Just because he can write in a pretty manner, if indeed he can, does not make him a conservative. I’d like for him to rethink his professions and get out of our faces.

won across all demographic and political lines in the three states they were run.
And that would be why, as well, that pro-life abortion restrictions are winning in more and more legislatures.

Remember 2003? So many memories.

Now he’s thinking that the way to resolve the whole losing elections thing is to keep kicking folks out of the party.

Hey, when all you have is a hammer…

We took this man’s advice and ran a “moderate” for President. As predicted by many, we got crushed.

He really looks stupid when you see social conservatism at work in CA and FL (Marriage amendments) and the rejection of affirmative action. Many social conservatives in those states did not vote for John McCain.

But there is a civil war going on in this party folks. The vicious attack on sarah palin is the first major attack.

In the Northeast, the republican party allowed our “moderate wing” to run “moderates”, just what Frum is suggesting. How did that work out since Reagan? There now is not one Republican Congressman left in New England.

If that does not end this debate, than idiotcy is fatal.

Frum is an idiot. He’s an elitist and can’t relate to social conservatives.

A great conservative communicator can nearly always bring a majority of the electorate to our side.

We need someone like Newt, but without the baggage!

David Frum is not being realistic. The idea of toning down the religious angle has some merits - we shouldn’t be discussing it in a way that alienates people from different Christian sects or other religions. However, the evangelicals and other devout Christians/Jews tend to make up a very reliable voting bloc and they’re a large part of the 3 wings of the party. Asking them to take a hike is madness. I’m pro-choice and would prefer the party leave abortion to the states, but I’m in the minority on that as a Republican. People who are pro-life tend to be very hard core about it because of the religion angle. Telling them to essentially “get over it” is asking them to ignore a major religious point. If you think it’s murder, then it’s undertandable you try to advocate against it.

If the social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, or national defense hawks decide to start purging one another from the party we’re going to break up like the Canadian Conservative Party did for several years. We have to work together on the binding principles that led us to be on the same team in the first place.

If we advocate for fiscal sanity, individual liberty & responsibility, a strong defense, and some conservative social principles we’re in a much better position. I can accept the pro-life direction of the party as long as my hot buttons of national defense and fiscal conservatism are looked after. If we make a better case as to why judicial activism is such a dangerous thing - maybe independents and sensible Democrats would get it too. None of us are going to get everything we want in a party, but if we aren’t working together the Democrats are going to run this nation into a far worse ditch.

Does it matter that in a country like Brazil, which is mostly catholic, and where abortion is not only illegal but very taboo, there are 2-4 times the number of abortions per capita than in the U.S.? In other words, making abortion illegal is highly unlikely to reduce abortion rates.

Knowing this, is it really a worthwhile stance to base a party on a message that half the population finds draconian when you know that, even if you have your way, it likely would accomplish nothing toward achieving the true goal.

Why not change the message to embrace a stated core goal such as ‘reducing abortion rates through promotion of abstinence, education, birth control, and responsible choice’. ‘The party for responsible choice’. Then, you might actually achieve your goal of reducing abortion rates and get more voters at the same time.

There are plenty of free-market capitalists who would prefer to call themselves Republicans but simply can’t embrace this aspect of the conservative social ideology, which appears to them anachronistic or draconian.

…and they promptly chop it off with a machete.

Go to war with your base solidified and pick up as many moderates as you can: WIN (see RR twice, Bush I once, Bush II twice, Gingrich).

Go to war with the moderates in tow and pick up as many from the base as you can: LOSE (see Bush I once, Dole, McCain).

I’d like to see Frum and his ilk leave the party. They can siphon off moderate Dems and start a 3rd party. Bye, bye David.

that our organization is going in a different direction. Mr. Frum, Ms. Noonan, we feel that your talents would be put to better use elsewhere, as the Conservative movement feels that your efforts in the last election cycle have been somewhat lacking.

Thanks,

Wing Zero

“I’ll sit on the sidelines.” Right. Like there are sidelines, now.

If the s.c.s are, as the numbers suggest, responsible for sinking M-P by staying home, then the nation owes them/you. But you won’t like the payout.

…not social conservatism but a crummy economy, the Iraq War and the Bush legacy.
Allow me to suggest a twofold cure for Republican ills: no more Bush, no more big government conservatism.

I was commenting yesterday that more people saw Obama as being more comfortable talking about his faith than McCain. Being “less overtly religious” really helped McCain, didn’t it?

As much as these elites mention it, I actually think Republicans have not focused enough on abortion. Should that continue, I think it may hurt them even more. The liberal media love to pry it out of them to exapnd only on every detail the majority opposes (contrast to Democrats where we only hear expansion of details the public supports).

I do think we’ve got to debunk the “it’s personal” myth as well as the one that questions “when life begins” as a matter of “faith.”

I think Republicans remaining as silent or inactive as they have will damage, if it has not already, support for the candidate and for the pro-life cause.

Of course, you aren’t going to find people who would vote Republican if only they favored abortion. The only people who say that are Democrats across the board.

I’ll refer Frum and others here to this poll showing the self-desribed fiscal conservative-social liberal crowd as the tiniest one of all the combinations.

be for the individual states to decide.

As for conservative values, we need to keep them front and center. It is vitally important that we maintain the core values that define us as human and conservative. We absolutely need to bring the economy and government spending into the spotlight as well. If we show that smaller government and fiscal responsibility will ultimately provide a stronger nation overall. I just do not see how we, as conservatives and as a nation, can prosper without the core values that define us.

SURVIVING IN WYOMING…

Join the RedState Strike Force

In ‘92 at least, they could argue the country was much more strongly pro-choice. It has changed quite a bit in 16 years, I’d argue.

It’s funny. After losing in ‘04, there was about a week of post-mortem where Kerry suggested privately to Dems that maybe they needed to moderate a bit on abortion. Appearantly, gasps were audible in the room. I remember this.

The economy appeared to drown everything else out this year. For Frum to talk about abortion is silly.

If we’re ever going to have a chance in hell of winning, it’ll require holding on to the pro-life view. It may end up being our ONLY redeeming quality to Hispanic voters in the Southwest. Particularly Hispanic Catholics.

We lost because we abandoned fiscal conservatism, but not because we embraced social conservatism. Our stool tipped because we cut off one of the legs, but it makes no sense to replace it and then cut off another. It will tip in a different direction but it will still tip.

Frum and the rest are just your usual social liberals trying to purge the party of social conservatives. The same general crew is behind the anti-Palin movement, and for the same reason. I think they would be happy to be in a permanent minority as long as they didn’t have to associate with that “religious riff-raff”.

Every time someone starts talking to us about what we should do, it is always about abandoning some principle of Conservatism?

if you think for one moment that people like me will remain in the GOP if the party abandons its prolife principles, you’re sadly mistaken. I will gladly take my leave, and watch Rome burn from the sidelines.

Because, I think the 2008 election has shown that social conservatism, as a political force, has its limits.

When I say “more ultimatums,” I’m referring to the public letter James Dobson issued before this election, threatening to lead pro-lifers in support a of third-party candidate, if the GOP didn’t nominate a sufficiently pro-life POTUS candidate.

Anyone with a lick of sense knew that, if Obama were to take the White House and the Democrats expanded their control of the Senate, the Democrats would seat enough judges to safeguard Roe for a generation.

Yet, states with strong pro-life movements (CO, VA) went for Obama, or elected Democrats to the Senate (AR, LA).

With respect, the pro-life policy message isn’t resonating strongly enough with a majority of Americans.

Am I saying the GOP should become a pro-choice party? Far from it.

But, I don’t see where social conservatives have much ground to insist on dictating the direction of the party. Or, issue more ultimatums.

That doesn’t make David Frum any less of a twit.