Rudy & the Social Right [Andy McCarthy]
FWIW, I have to agree with Ramesh, Rich and Kathryn on this one. I don't think the Right neatly divides into social and national-security conservatives. There's too much mutual cross-over to fix a hard line. I find myself in that blur, solid on the national-security side and in sync most of the time, but not all, on the social side. Having watched the dynamic for a while, my sense is that it's the socials that drive the movement.
We national-security types tend to be so confident we are right about what needs to be done to protect the country — to the point over over-confidence — that we don't always realize it's not enough to be right. You need to get out and make the case all the time. In this, we're at a distinct disadvantage: the left and its civil libertarian allies are much more attentive, politically attuned and organized. We think it's so obvious that the government has no interest in peeking into your library records, and that it's no big deal if the government, like the credit companies, has access to your financial records, that we never see the blitz coming until it's washing over us. By the time we get out of the batter's box, the left's shock troops already have the media covered in stories about Big Brother and domestic spying. We blithely assume we'll win based on common sense, and we end up playing catch-up, or losing, because the other side is fighting for public opinion before we even realize there's a game on.
Social conservatives are under no such illusion. They're no less sure they have it right than the national-security types, but they've been hammered too long to be under any illusions. Their vision of America is under assault every day, and they know they have to bring it every day just to stay even.
No one on our side, including Rudy, can win without giving social conservatives a reason to believe it's important that he or she wins. Period. They are the thrum that makes this thing go. They'll be steadfast if your disagreements with them are few, principled and coherent; but you can never suggest to them that their issues — which are ingrained to their core — should be subordinated for the sake of something as comparatively trivial as party unity. Our people believe, rightly, that their conception of America is transcendent. It's more important than who is in power. Government does not consume them, and they won't be active unless they are persuaded that a candidate will protect and nurture that conception — not necessarily on every issue, but on the whole.
In 2004, President Bush got the most votes of anyone who ever ran for president in the history of the United States. But Senator Kerry got the second most, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are more attractive candidates than Kerry. If social conservatives are not inspired to come out in force in 2008, we lose. It would be madness to tell them that taxpayer funding of abortions, which is a very simple issue of right and wrong, is something they need to move beyond for the good of the team.
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