Politics

GOP Tries to Bridge Social-Fiscal Divide

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an election season driven by economic worries, Republican leaders are trying to keep Christian conservatives excited and involved by blurring the line between religious/social issues and low-tax crusades — a divide that has helped shape past GOP primaries.

Failure to do so could potentially depress turnout by an important part of the Republican base. Not only are fiscal issues dominating the debate, but social and Christian conservatives have no obvious candidate to turn to, as they did in 2008 when Baptist minister Mike Huckabee ran.

Facing this vacuum, a host of presidential hopefuls are emphasizing their religious faith and opposition to abortion and gay marriage, even though they are better known as business-like managers of state governments and private companies.

Their efforts were on display Friday at a Washington gathering of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group whose name summarizes the bid to combine religious and libertarian priorities.

“I do not believe the Republican Party should focus solely on our economic life to the neglect of our human life,” Jon Huntsman told the crowd of several hundred, after citing numerous anti-abortion laws he signed as Utah governor.

Acknowledging that the federal deficit will be a huge issue in 2012, Huntsman said: “If Republicans ignore life, the deficit we will face is one that is much more destructive. It will be a deficit of the heart and of the soul.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made similar points, if somewhat more prosaically. “The debt we are amassing as a nation and passing on to our children is immoral,” he said in remarks prepared for an evening address to the conference.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition is headed by Ralph Reed, who made his name as the young and savvy political strategist for the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. Starting with television evangelist Pat Robertson’s second-place finish in the 1988 GOP Iowa caucus, the religious right played a major role in Republican politics for years. It still does to a lesser extent.

Following the 2007 death of the politically dynamic Christian leader Jerry Falwell, some churches and ministers have de-emphasized partisan politics. The religious right’s place is less certain now. Reed is among those trying to strengthen it by tying it more tightly to economic issues, which traditionally took a back seat to abortion, prayer in school, gay rights and other issues for a large segment of voters.

Everyone is concerned about deficit spending, Reed said in an interview. “Intergenerational theft in the form of massive debts passed on to future taxpayers is a moral issue,” he said.

Reed said the line between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives is thinner and blurrier than it was a few years ago. “The tea party was the moment that marriage took place,” he said, alluding to the libertarian-tinged movement that arose in 2009, mainly in opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care proposals.

It’s not entirely clear how solid that marriage is, however. Without question, many conservative and liberal voters care deeply about social and economic issues alike. But in the world of conservative activists, many seem more at home in one camp or the other.

An August 2010 poll by the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of tea party supporters had not heard of or did not have an opinion about “the conservative Christian movement sometimes known as the religious right.”

Another conservative speaker on Friday, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, suggested that social issues play the principal role in the social-fiscal marriage. “We cannot fix the fiscal until we fix the family,” he said, urging the government and society to encourage marriage and parental responsibility.

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist says Christian conservatives obviously care about fiscal issues, but they still gravitate toward candidates with strong evangelical backgrounds and an emphasis on issues such as combating abortion and championing the sanctity of marriage.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, captured many of those voters when he won the 2008 Iowa caucus. His absence this year, Norquist said, leaves “those voters and those issues more in play.”

An evangelical with a record of cutting taxes and spending might do especially well, he said. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty might fit that role, Norquist said, adding that he is neutral in the presidential race.

Pawlenty was raised Catholic but left for an evangelical congregation while courting his future wife, Mary. In his recent autobiography, he quotes the Bible and emphasizes his faith more prominently than he did during his two terms as governor.

Pawlenty is hardly alone in courting the Christian conservative vote in Huckabee’s absence. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who is inching toward a presidential bid, hit several buttons in her 13-minute speech Friday to the Faith and Freedom crowd. She reminded them that she home-schooled her five biological children and served as foster mother to 23 others. She said “marriage is under siege” in America and closed with a prayer.

Newt Gingrich, a protestant-turned-Catholic, also has stressed his religious faith, although he was not scheduled to speak to the Faith and Freedom gathering. Among the presidential hopefuls who did plan to speak here Friday or Saturday, Ron Paul sticks mostly to libertarian and financial issues, while Rick Santorum and Herman Cain delve deeply into social matters.

The audience members sat silently when Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged them to embrace the eventual Republican presidential nominee despite the certainty that they will disagree with him or her on some issues.

“Purity is the enemy of victory,” Barbour said, later describing his words as “the Dutch uncle talk.”

Many at the conference seemed more moved by the issues being discussed than by the candidates discussing them.

“I’m still sitting on the fence,” said Mark Roepke of Arlington, Va., who was handing out stickers saying “Defund Planned Parenthood,” a group that provides pregnancy counseling and abortions. His eventual choice, he said, will have to bridge the gap that Reed contends is narrowing.

“I don‘t think you can have a country that’s economically healthy without being socially and spiritually healthy,” Roepke said.

Comments (9)

  • Ifcabob
    Posted on June 6, 2011 at 8:30pm

    Boy, this article and the comments sure do tiptoe around the whole Teaparty phenom. I don’t remember too many TP discussions concerning themselves with many social issues. Paying for other people’s abortions and the “benefits grab” gays are looking to get by being married are obviously a problem for TPers due to the expansion of big government that they entail. But the criminilization of drugs, prostitution and gambling is definitely BIG GOVERNMENT stuff that TPers would probably prefer to not talk much about. The NeoCon beloved big-government military industrial complex is also a festering wound in the Republican party which is probably why the likes of noteworthy NeoCons like Krauthammer, Crystal, Barnes, Goldberg and Rove et al arfe constantly supporting establishment, alsoran RINOs rather than the more exciting TP/Libertarians.

    Report Post »  
  • Centralsville
    Posted on June 6, 2011 at 10:00am

    I do draw the line at abortion, drug legalization and gay marriage, the big social issues of the day. Almost everyone thinks abortion is murder at some point in a pregnancy, the disagreement comes on when that line is crossed. I don’t think legalizing all drugs would fix the drug problem. Nobody cares if two homosexuals want to do each other at home, the disagreement comes when they want to redefine marriage. I can agree with Libertarians on everything else. Get the government out of everything else. I would love to end all social programs, get the government completely out of education and private business.

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    • TrueLiberal
      Posted on June 6, 2011 at 5:53pm

      Centralsville, I believe you have a logical problem with your thinking. One can’t stop a drunk from having a drink by defining the drinking as “bad” and then telling him he is not allowed to drink. Just ask Glenn, he has told us his story many times. The drinking stops when he realizes for HIMSELF the drinking is bad. I am not saying the kid has to touch the hot stove in order to end the “bad behavior” just saying your order is wrong.
      If you want abortion to stop, help people understand why it is a poor choice. (I abhor the practice by the way) If you want to stop drug problems, don’t lock-up hippies for smoking a doobie, assist them in making better choices. (like something that might improve their life) If you want to end the gay marriage debate, let people love who they will with the same advantages and disadvantages, benefits and responsibilities as any other, so the word “marriage” becomes superfluous. (suddenly no reason for you to care if they have a relationship) Remember what your grandmother told you, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

      Report Post » TrueLiberal  
  • Centralsville
    Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:31am

    They are the same issue but many are too stupid to see it, including Libertarians. Our very freedoms and our former prosperity were an outgrowth of our former Christianity. Our steep decline is the result of our turning away from our Christian roots. If you think you can continue on our moral decline and turn around our economy at the same time you are a stupid fool.

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    • LibertariansUnite
      Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:45am

      Moral decline was not a result of lack of Christianity, Moral decline was the result of government intervention.

      Example:

      70-100-150+ years ago, whichever year you want to pick, you choose, women had a huge incentive not to get pregnant without being with someone stable (stable families). Their incentive was that if they did get pregnant they would have a very hard time, almost impossible time of raising children.
      Now with welfare programs women don’t even worry about when they get pregnant, because they know they will be taken care of.

      Years ago before social programs churches used to use their funds, instead of building big coffee shops and gyms, to actually reaching out to the public with financial help, hospitals etc. Now, since government has taken that role, people do not appreciate the church’s role.

      Years ago, people had to save their money, and stick together as families to survive when they got older, again relying on their community and the church communities. Now with social security and medicare, people believe the government can take care of them, so they do not consider responsibility for their actions.

      I could come up with many examples of why the moral decline has occured in our society, due to government intervention.

      So the ultimate point is: When the people return to the concept that the individual is responsible for himself, and NOT the collective is responsible for the individual, morals will return to this society.

      Report Post » LibertariansUnite  
    • Centralsville
      Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:51am

      Hard to disagree with you. I think ALL or our current problems were caused by government. If we could get back our constitutional freedoms the government is stripping away and could get the government out of everything else we would all be better off and prosperity would return.

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    • LibertariansUnite
      Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:55am

      This is true, don’t get me wrong, I am not downplaying the role of religion, or of God in society.

      But once you replace a country’s “God” with government, it is very easy to become morally irresponsible. So I would consider the reduction in the appreciation of Christianity more as a side effect of government intervention, but not as the cause of the moral decline.

      Report Post » LibertariansUnite  
  • LibertariansUnite
    Posted on June 6, 2011 at 8:16am

    Surprise Surprise, the Blaze forgot to mention Ron Paul, who actually spoke at the religious Faith and Freedom gathering.

    Ok, just in case anyone forgot:

    Reasons to vote for Ron Paul:

    Consistency – He has a completely clean voting record, he has ALWAYS voted pro constitution.

    Integrity – Ron Paul is a devote Christian, who also believes you should not spread Christianity by force!

    Ending the Wars – Ron Paul wants to end the pointless, and bloody wars that sacrifice our soldiers trivially for a false sense of security.

    The Economy – Ron Paul wants to transform all the social programs into one program, where anyone can opt out from. Of course by doing this he will reduce the size of government drastically.

    Liberty – Ron Paul truly believes in restoring Liberty and self responsibility to this country, and destroying the idea of the collective taking care of the individual, when the individual should take care of himself.

    Military Vet- The ONLY candidate currently that served any service time, which for him is 5 years in the air force during Vietnam as a flight surgeon.

    Ron Paul 2012

    Report Post » LibertariansUnite  
    • Sinista MACE
      Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:17am

      Hmmm.

      “…blurring the line between religious/social issues …”

      Isn’t that exactly what Obama is trying to do with his false doctrine of collective salvation?

      Why YES! Yes he is!!

      Why is the ideology similar to the Establishment GOP Progressives stance?

      BECAUSE LIBERALS AND NEOCONS ARE ONE AND THE SAME!

      “The term neoconservative was initially employed as a criticism against proponents of American modern liberalism who had ”moved to the right”.” – Wikipedia

      Neocons are Warmongering Liberals who support government social intervention and spark wars of false pretense around the world in order to spread “LIBERAL DEMOCRACY” (the Bush Doctrine), when the fact is, we live in a REPUBLIC that has been usurped and modified into a “liberal democracy” by the NEOCONS and LIBERALS.
      Ron Paul 2012.

      Report Post » V-MAN MACE  

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