You can practically hear the champagne corks popping in the White House as the Republicans in Congress and the presidential candidates start talking about social issues. Rick Santorum wants to go back to 1949, and suddenly the angry right is talking more about contraception that jobs.
While most GOP strategists are horrified by this development, James Taranto tries to argue that this is a good thing for the GOP. Really.
If you’re a Republican in New York or another big city, you may be anxious or even terrified at the prospect that Rick Santorum, the supposedly unelectable social conservative, may win the GOP presidential nomination. Jeffrey Bell would like to set your mind at ease.
Social conservatism, Mr. Bell argues in his forthcoming book, “The Case for Polarized Politics,” has a winning track record for the GOP. “Social issues were nonexistent in the period 1932 to 1964,” he observes. “The Republican Party won two presidential elections out of nine, and they had the Congress for all of four years in that entire period. . . . When social issues came into the mix—I would date it from the 1968 election . . . the Republican Party won seven out of 11 presidential elections.”
Read the whole thing. It’s a staggering example of selectively picking facts to suit your argument. Listening to this argument, you would think that the Cold War, the economy and the Iranian hostage crisis had nothing to do with Reagan’s win in 1980 (let alone Ted Kennedy’s challenge to Carter in the primaries).
This simplistic view might placate some Republicans, and hopefully enough of them will jump on this bandwagon. Perhaps we’ll see a fall campaign with Rick Santorum railing against contraception and online gambling.
Posted in: Conservatives, Culture War, Lunatic Fringe, Policy, Politics
Tags: 2012 presidential election, candidate Rick Santorum, Christionist candidates, Christionist extremism, Christionist philosophy, Christionists, contraception, James Taranto, online gambling, Rick Santorum, Rick Santorum 2012, Rick Santorum abortion, Rick Santorum contraception, Rick Santorum culture war, Rick Santorum for President, Rick Santorum sex, Rick Santorum sex obsession, social isses
Trying to repost:
You’re funny–”railing against contraception,” in the same post that you comment on “selectively picking facts.” It would be even funnier if the contraception comment wasn’t just completely false.
Let the distortions begin (or continue)!!!!!!!
Kinda fun to watch the GOP implode by letting democrats paint them into a corner on an issue that most women are united on regardless of heir political views. Right now republicans have a huge issue with their own women voters and they’ve only themselves to blame.
Hey Gerardo, figured you would love this one!
12 REASONS TO VOTE DEMOCRAT
When your family or friends cannot explain why they voted Democrat, give them this list. Then they can then pick a reason from this “TOP 12″…
1. I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.
2. I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.
3. I voted Democrat because Freedom of Speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.
4. I voted Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.
5. I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.
6. I voted Democrat because I’m not concerned about millions of babies being aborted so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
7. I voted Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, and we should take away the social security from those who paid into it.
8. I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrats see fit.
9. I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.
10. I voted Democrat because I think that it’s better to pay billions to people who hate us for their oil, but not drill our own because it might upset some endangered beetle, gopher or fish.
11. I voted Democrat because while we live in the greatest, most wonderful country in the world, I was promised “HOPE AND CHANGE”.
12. I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my ass, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have another point of view.
Has anybody noticed that Ohio Governor John Kasich is trying to push through a huge tax increase against job creating entrepreneurs? Northern Republicans like Kaich and Romney are really just liberals pretending to be conservative.