"To listen to some Republicans you would think that traditional conservatives, the defenders of the unborn and the integrity of marriage were responsible for two wars gone sour, over-spending at a level to embarrass Lyndon Johnson, the largest expansion of entitlement spending since the Great Society, numerous cases of GOP corruption, betrayal of the public trust, and the miserable results in the presidential and congressional elections..." Like me, Tracy Mehan of the American Spectator is fed up with the Republicans' post-election finger-pointing. In his op-ed "Social Conservative as Scapegoats," he lashes out at the GOP's centrists for blaming November 4 on "the solid and most loyal" wing of the Reaganite coalition. To those of us in the pro-family movement, the Establishment's diatribe is a familiar one. When the GOP succeeds because of social conservatives, our importance is ignored. When the party fails for overlooking us, values voters are somehow to blame. With the exception of Gov. Sarah Palin and some hollow overtures by the Democratic Party, the 20 percent of voters who cited "moral values" as their first or second priority in this election had no real horse in this race. Maybe that explains why believers were less active in this election cycle. More than four million Americans who go to church more than once a week and voted in 2004 stayed home on November 4. Those voters would have made up half the difference between McCain and Obama. As the members of the Republican party jockey for position in this brave new Congress and sort out their internal leadership, a commitment to life and marriage is non-negotiable. Without it, the prospects of a Republican revival are bleak. As Karl Rove rightly points out, "These values are often more popular than the GOP itself."
Source: FRC, American Spectator
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