Why Meghan McCainism Is A Dead End

iwall, sure but I reject the premise that social issues (in the sense of abortion, gay marriage ect.) are always paramount.  They are for lots of people, and many social liberals are also commited economic liberals, but I know of pro-choice people who voted for pro-life Republican presidential candidates because of economic and  competence issues, even if it increased the risk of some kind of incremental restriction on abortion.  The social issues were just a lower priority for them.  Those people voted Obama in the last election.  The Republicans had no seeming clue on the economy and the idea of the Republicans appealing on competence was a bad joke.  If the Republicans had a much better economic message and seemed the better bet for managing the country's problems, those pro-choicers would have a tough decision to make.  When it comes to winning over social liberals, that is the best that Republicans can really hope for without alienating a larger group of social conservatives. 

It works the other way too.  There were probably some people who disagreed with Obama on partial birth abortion but were disgusted by the Iraq War and bewildered by the economic collapse and ended up voting for Obama.

A bigger political problem than the GOPs sociaI conservatism is the sense that it is a party of rural/exurban and white identity politics.  This alienates people who might be willing to listen to a moderately conservative message on social issues if they did not already think the Republicans were the enemy.  I think that there are untapped veins of social conservatism in the African American and Latino community but Republicans can't mine it because the perception in those communities that Republicans are the "white" party.  Hanging tough on the social issues won't, by itself, help with this problem, but moving left hurts.  The only chance Republicans have is to find ways to appeal to conservative inclined voters in those communities based on common principles (Democrats have every advantage of history and sympathy), and giving up on principle leaves you with nothing on which to win over those voters.

acinphx, on abortion, I'm pro-life but I think that as a matter of constitutional law it should be legislated by the states.  I'm conflicted on gay marriage. I do think that the issue should be legislated on a state-by-state basis rather than judicially imposed.  I'm no fan of Intelligent Design and have no strong opinion on what kind of sex education a particular school should have.  I think those decisions should be made locally.  Some districts will take a very amoral utilitarian approach to sex education ("Do what you want but do it with a condom") and some will teach abstinence only.  Most will adopt something in between.  This is one of those cases where I value diversity.  On prayer in schools: I think an accomadationist postition in which religous organizations and opinions are treated equally with secular organizations in terms of facility use and right of expression is fine and also smart politics, but no state forced prayer. If a student speaker wants to talk about their atheism or read a prayer at an assembly, neither violates the First Amendment as far as I'm concerned .  I would slot climate change as more of an economic issue and the death penalty was nominally  supported by both presidential candidates (though I suspect that Obama's eventual Supreme Court appointments will vote to restrict or ban it, which will revive it as a partisan issue). 

I think that there is a way to be socially conservative in a way that is more incrementalist on policy and less culturally alienating to people outside of the conservative base.  John McCain (at least prior to the financial meltdown) would probably have been smarter to talk up Obama's view on partial birth abortion.  That was a case where the socially conservative opinion was also the majority opinion and Obama was on the fringe of the pro-choice position.  Instead McCain adopted a cultural politics that substituted for an issue based social conservative politics.  He could have campaigned on an incrementalist position on abortion and an opposition to the judicial imposition of liberal social policies, but he instead  campaigned (or rather used Palin to campaign) on the cultural resentments of rural and exurban voters against the cultural attitudes of social liberals - and by extension urban areas.  This gave us all the bitterness of a culture war with none of the real principles that might make one worth fighting. They forgot that their political opponents were defined by their opinions and not their zip codes.  By turning it into a regional identity politics, they gave urban and inner suburb voters no reason to listen to them and probably turned off some potential allies.  By deemphasizing issues, they made it a lot easier for the GOP ticket to be dismissed as mindless.  They should have talked a lot more about judicial usurpation and a lot less about lipstick on pigs or whatever.

I think that this would have helped a little but at the end of the day, McCain would still have been undone by his cluelessness on the financial meltdown.  I also think that the key to expanding the Republican party has a lot more to do with finding ways to reach out to nonwhite voters and crafting and economic agenda that directly speaks to the concerns of the majority of the voters.  Social conservatism in the sense of the abortion issue or the public funding of contraception or whatever is not the GOPs problem and becoming pro-choice, becoming pro- gay marriage, and spending vast sums for free condoms will win over few while alienating many.

Adam makes  good points, especially the one that many younger people people are both pro-life and pro gay marriage (though it is worth pointing out that McCain didn't say she is in favor of any particular abortion restrictions).

But Meghan McCain does herself no favors when she singles out Christie Todd Whitman as "a role model for women in politics, and she was also ahead of her time in calling for a more-inclusive Republican Party. Whitman began talking about the changes we need to see happen in the GOP years ago" (link http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-13/a-gayer-gop/2/ ).  Social conservatives have good reason to be annoyed that McCain seems more interested in castigating them as extreme than in creating a broader center-right politics.  A pro gay marriage politics withinin the right is going to have to be a CONSERVATIVE pro gay marriage politics.  It will have to explain why moving to the center on gay marriage will advance other conservative goals (and even why gay marriage itself squares with conservative goals).  It isn't impossible.  Liberals made a similar move to the center on gun control even as they moved politics in more liberal directions on the economy.  Attacking social conservatives while having no conservative economic agenda and holding up Christie Todd Whitman as a model of the new conservative politics will (and ought) to be rejected as a revival of liberal Republicanism with a new justification.