I agree with Vintage here, but I think there's more to be said.  In Vintage's post, he links Hotair, where Allah correctly notes that a lot of social conservatives are going to be pissed about McCain's meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans, and this will probably hurt McCain, politically speaking(I was reading that post too). 

This speaks to a fundamental problem, we're beginning to see a rift between small government conservatives and the social conservatives, many want to simply abandon the social conservatives, sometimes out of frustration, sometimes out of animosity or hatred, or personal hurt, many social conservatives want to ditch the small government wing and use the government to protect traditional social views.  Cathartic as it might be, that isn't the answer.  We small government conservatives need to offer an alternate path to social conservatives, and we must do so quickly. 

This problem became clear with the rise of Mike Huckabee in the primary this year, those of us that saw Huck for the walking disaster he was managed to stop him from taking the nomination, yeah, we ended up with stupid McCain, but Huck would have been worse, which is horrifying in itself. 

Huckabee is still pounding his Christian Democrat message, and he has a solid base of sympathizers and followers.  If you look at that post, you can see how Huckabee slimes small government conservatives and lays waste to several straw men, caricatures of ruthless libertarians and robber barons crushing working people and old folks underfoot.  We know that isn't true, but clearly many people don't, we need to combat this notion, and keep the Christian Democrats from winning the heart of the social conservative movement. 

The problem with Huckabee and many other social conservatives is that they're trying to solve social problems largely caused by overreaching government.  In essence, he and those who think like him are trying to cure illnesses by treating the symptoms of an illness, not the root cause. 

We have to offer an alternative to social conservatives, and we have to work to convince them that our vision isn't the horror show the Mike Huckabees of the world demagogue and portray it as. We have to explain why it is reducing government power won't create social decay, and will likely reverse it.  How working to allow things like private school vouchers allow them to accomplish what they've tried and failed to accomplish in the courts.  I'm sure you can come up with plenty more examples, but there are a few.  

The time to preach the word of small government conservatism is now.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 08:43 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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