What moderates?

Peter Wallsten writes in today’s LAT: The social conservatives and moderates who together boosted the Republican Party to dominance have begun a tense battle over the future of the GOP, with social conservatives already moving to seize control of the party’s machinery and some vowing to limit John McCain’s influence, even if he wins the […]

Peter Wallsten writes in today’s LAT:

The social conservatives and moderates who together boosted the Republican Party to dominance have begun a tense battle over the future of the GOP, with social conservatives already moving to seize control of the party’s machinery and some vowing to limit John McCain’s influence, even if he wins the presidency.

So far as I can see, there’s no interest in in broadening the ideological base of the party on the part of either social or economic conservatives, which leaves the conservative intelligentsia to indulge in defection and right sectarianism to their hearts’ content. It may be that a new Republican base emerges from the ashes via the kind of broad-agenda evangelicalism that Rich Cizik personifies, but this time around, it’s been a jacked-up paleo-evangelical agenda (thanks, Sarah!) that has strutted its stuff. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!