Will Social Issues Hurt or Help the Right Wing?

OK, so there was a bit of a Republican showing in this past election. The GOP gained some political seats and same-sex marriage was shot down in flames (pun intended) in Maine.

But, not all Republicans agree that aiming their concentration at social issues is advancing their cause. In a sense, I understand that there is a sect of Republicans who believe that fighting the almighty ‘gay agenda’ and other social issues like abortion, and abstinence only sex ed are the in roads for growth of the conservative movement. In realistic terms, those who oppose equality and freedom of choice are the loudest participants on the political set at the moment.

However, one does have to wonder if that group really is nothing more than the yapping chihuahua…in other words, a small dog with a never-ending, shrill and loud bark.

Republicans typically stand on a platform of small government. They don’t want the government telling them what to do, how to live, taxing them (because we all know taxation is for the lower classes) and they certainly shiver at the thought of anything ‘government run’. But, it’s that group of extreme conservatives, who have continued to parade as Republicans, attempting to gain support through theocratic view, that just may end up damaging the GOP more than helping it (which in my opinion, would be great). After all, they tout small government, yet demand that the government prevents equality. They demand the government stay out of their lives, but demand the government interferes in the lives of those they disagree with. Irony and hypocrisy? Yes!

Well, it would look as though I’m not the only one hoping along those lines.

According to a post on No More Mister Nice Blog:

I just got around to reading Michael Sokolove’s New York Times Magazine profile of Dick Armey, and I see that, not surprisingly, Sokolove accepts the conventional wisdom that there’s a fissure on the right that actually isn’t there:

FreedomWorks also advocates a so-called flat income tax, free trade and personal Social Security retirement accounts whose investments would be controlled by workers. But more telling is what is not on its list of concerns — abortion, gay marriage and other social issues. To some degree, Armey’s new prominence signals the rise of economic conservatives in the Republican Party — and a decline in influence of the religious right.

And yes, it’s true that Armey himself seems to have problems with social conservatives.

A churchgoer and born-again Christian, Armey has nonetheless clashed with the religious right. He disagreed with Republicans’ attempts to inject themselves into the Terri Schiavo case and said that Tom DeLay and other important Republicans who remained after he left “got too wrapped up in social issues” and turned off voters. At one point, he referred to them as “those nitwits who took over after we left.”

“They jumped from the defensive side to the offensive side in the whole homosexual-marriage issue,” Armey told me, explaining that, in his view, Republicans overreached by putting ballot measures forward to define marriage. “When Republicans are fighting against the power of the state, we win. When we are trying to advance it, we lose.”

…And according to a post on the NY Times:

The election results last week underscore the fundamentals. It was all about turnout: Republicans voted, while there was a huge drop in Democrats and independents, who support President Barack Obama.

What that suggests isn’t a movement toward conservatives or Republicans. It is that Mr. Obama, along with almost every popular politician from Dwight D. Eisenhower through Ronald Reagan, cannot transfer his appeal. The much-hyped Obama grass-roots machine, which was so effective in getting him elected president, doesn’t have coattails when it comes to congressional races or issues such as health care.

In elections such as 2009 and 2010, the angry and alienated turn out in larger proportions. Ultimately, the Republicans will have to offer an alternative vision of governance. That is what they did successfully in 1980.

This usually gets them in trouble on hot-button social issues. It could prove a loser on economic and fiscal matters, too. The Republican agenda — tax cuts for business and investors, pretty much the status quo on health care and an unwillingness to take on entitlements — doesn’t add up and offers minimal appeal to important constituencies such as younger voters, Hispanics and working-class women.

So, I am hopeful, actually more than hopeful, I’m staring at goats here, that the smaller conservative, anti-gay, yapping chihuahua that believes they have a strong hold on the GOP and the nation, get’s kicked in the teeth, or perhaps shaken to death by the larger GOP dog. All I know…the sooner the better.