Thirteen social conservatives, representing various influential groups, wrote Priebus ahead of the RNC's quarterly meeting this week in Los Angeles to sternly rebuke the conclusions of a post-election report that advised Republican elected officials to adopt a softer tone toward social issues.

"We respectfully warn GOP Leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our constituents to their support," concludes the letter, which was obtained by and independently verified by NBC News in advance of the meeting this week.

The letter further asks GOP committeemen to pass a resolution at their meeting this week re-affirming the party's 2012 national platform, which includes language calling for bans on abortion and same-sex marriage

The gaping wound in the middle of the Republican party is opening wider and wider. Where will these "constituents" go?

More ironically, the letter claims the religious community has never, ever been mean to gays.

The conservatives additionally expressed their anger at what they said was an insinuation that they had treated gays and lesbians unkindly.

"The fact that the party is strongly committed to traditional marriage has not prevented their involvement through GOProud or Log Cabin Republicans," they wrote. "We deeply resent the insinuation that we have treated homosexuals unkindly personally."

They can resent it all they want, but a quick visit to RightWingWatch says otherwise. This group may not have been a signatory, but I guarantee you they align with those who did sign. It's not mean at all to say that gays on TV will bring down the hard, wrathful hand of God on the country. Not in the least. Gary Bauer's group is a signatory, though I'm sure they don't think there's anything mean about suggesting that supporting gay rights is waging "cultural jihad" on the country. Yeah, no meanness there.

Those were just two examples from today. I don't really want to imagine what they think unkindness is if they imagine hateful remarks like that to be somehow "kind."

Juicy piece in Politico Monday morning about how social conservatives aren't about to roll over and accept gay marriage. Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum chimed in with the usual "we lost because McCain and Romney were moderates" nonsense, but buried in the piece was this nugget from Gary Bauer.

Social conservatives are particularly — and understandably — bothered that the elites rarely want to discuss the elephant in the room: that the party’s economic policies don’t necessarily appeal to the the rank and file, who vote Republican because it is the party of traditional values.

“If we gave our voters an accurate portrayal of our ideas, that we want to cut the rate of growth on Social Security, give tax cuts to billionaires and then the values issues, the values issues would be more popular than the economic agenda of the current Republican Party,” said Bauer, citing particularly those Mass-attending Roman Catholics who have fled the Democrats.

Bauer added, “I would caution the donor wing of the Republican Party that is driving a lot of this: If they think social conservatives are the only thing preventing Republicans from winning, they’ll learn that their economic agenda will go down the tubes along with the Republican Party’s prospects.”

Couple of interesting things here.

One, Bauer is accusing the Republican Party of basically lying about it's economic agenda. They've tried to gut social programs under the ridiculous guise of "saving them." Well, Bauer just said, no: they want to cut those programs to shovel free money at billionaires, and that's exactly what the Ryan budgets do.

The second thing is Bauer is right on the unpopularity of this agenda. Most voters don't want Social Security cut, or Medicare for that matter, but they overwhelmingly favor raising taxes on rich people.

Beltway Republicans have convinced themselves that all they need to do is stop bashing gays, immigrants, and women -- and that will fix all their problems. But this analysis totally ignores the fact, as Bauer pointed out, that Americans just aren't buying trickle-down anymore.

Heather already wrote a great post on this, but I wanted to add a little more. I just love conservatives because they find new words to describe the same old shit that has caused the country into a complete meltdown.

Their latest one is called Constitutional Conservatism. Digby says that Wolf Blitzer proclaimed it's a new day for conservatives.

A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world. A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

• It applies the principle of limited government based on the

  rule of law to every proposal.

• It honors the central place of individual liberty in American

  politics and life.

• It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and

  economic reforms grounded in market solutions.

• It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom

  and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that

  end.

• It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood,

  community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

February 17, 2010 Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation

Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council

Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center

Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator

David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society

T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

I wonder how many liberals will be signing on with Grover Norquist?

Anyway, it's more of the same bullshit. Didn't Karl Rove help George Bush to create the "Compassionate Conservative?" That was a load of crap too.

In fact, these conservatives are as "constitutional" as they are "compassionate." Which is to say: Not really at all. The giveaway this time around is their complaints that we "Mirandized" the Underwear Bomber and gave him "rights under our Constitution," as though those were only available to U.S. citizens. Except that the Constitution itself is very clear that we give those rights to everyone, citizen or not, under our jurisdiction. You'd think "constitutional conservatives" would be all over that.

We remember how bogus "Compassionate Conservativism" was. Source Watch:

Continue reading »

Donklephant: Wal-Mart backs employer health care insurance mandate

pandagon: Between Arizona and Oklahoma, your right to purchase whatever sh*tty insurance you want while cheating on your wife with someone who looks disturbingly like Rahm Emmanuel will remain unviolated by Barack Obama.

The Political Carnival: Is Michelle Bachman insane or just a pathological liar?

Southern Poverty Law Center: Mississippi pol said to be Governor Barbour's ally speaks to an infamous racist group

MoJo Blog: Although house prices are still declining, they're declining at a slower rate than before.  Hooray!

HOLY CRAP: Crazy For God...This Week in God...Social conservatives fall from grace...OY!...Satan's Synagogue...God's plan for Sanford...Sarah Palin's letters from God...Fake History...Porn “Prophet”...Under God...Dear Wiley Drake...Twisted Father/Daughter Purity Balls...Ralph Reed founds "Not Your Daddy's Christian Coalition"...Reality and its rivals...PBS's new ban on religious programming

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

On This Week with George Stephanopolis, the roundtable discussion turned to the recent "threats" by the Religious Right (who apparently renamed themselves Social Conservatives) to run a third-party candidate as a result of their distaste for the all-but-presumed Republican candidacy of Rudy Giuliani.

While Claire Shipman suggests that this may be a tactical way for the Dobsons and Perkins of the Religious Right to re-assert to the Republican party the need to cater to them, seeing as the Republicans can't possibly win this election anyway, so splitting off the vote is more statement than a way to win, George Will has just one thing to say to them: Grow up.

Social conservatives should grow up. If they want to rally around somebody, why don't try that? Huckabee needs support and money now. If the social conservatives are half as important as they think they are, they would rally around one of these people [..] And then decide what you care about. If you care about judges, then you're gonna get satisfied by Giuliani, then get in line and play politics. But there's a vanity in this group right now. They call themselves "values voters." I've news for them: 100% of the American electorate are values voters; they vote their values...And this, this, kind of semantic imperialism that they have where they say "we vote values". Everyone else votes what?

Anyone have an idea why the Religious Right isn't throwing their support behind Huckabee? Seems like he'd be just their type of candidate.

Bono's people distance themselves from Santorum

Nice try Ricky. Aren't rock musician's like the anti-Christ to these social conservatives? Once again-money is the true moral value for some of these phonies.

This is a an article form 99' talking about the problems Clinton had in having his judges confirmed.

..What is unprecedented now is how Republicans in the Senate, under pressure from social conservatives, have blocked the confirmation of judicial nominees almost from the outset of the Clinton presidency. They have waged an increasingly bitter war against his selection of judges ever since they gained control of the Senate following the 1994 midterm elections. They stalled the judicial appointment process in 1995 and, a year later, virtually shut it down in advance of the presidential election.

Embittered and angry over Clinton's reelection, Senate Republicans increased pressure on Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, to hold up hearings on Clinton's judicial nominees. They also pressed Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to break with tradition by allowing individual senators to place "secret holds" on nominees they opposed, thereby denying them hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ever since, the GOP-controlled Senate has been stonewalling judicial confirmations, long before the campaign for the presidential election in 2000 kicks into high gear. '

Notably, in the first half of 1999, Hatch balked at holding confirmation hearings on any of Clinton's judicial nominees, some of whom were nominated two to three years ago. Hearings were held only after Clinton agreed to name Ted Stewart to a district-court judgeship in Utah...read on

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked some of the right questions to Dan Bartlett, counselor to the President.:

Bush said he would not lobby the Senate to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage.

Wallace: Isn't he breaking a campaign promise he made to all those social conservatives, that he was going to push an amendment?

Bartlett: Absolutely not....

Video

President Bush talking about Social Security(video)

Bush: ...will be flat bust, bankrupt unless U.S. Congress has got the willingness to act now.

Wallace: Ahh..As a simple fact, isn't that wrong?

Bartlett: Absolutely not...

Notice that Dan gave the same exact answer twice to start his defense of the president. In response to the "gay marriage" issue, Bartlett used the type of reasoning to justify his answer that Arlen Specter gave while talking about judicial nominees that had the Evangelical Christians up in arms. By the way talking about the Evangelicals, on the Focus on the Family website, there is a story that says just the opposite of what the president has said: Push for Marriage Amendment Restarted: A federal marriage amendment will be reintroduced in the Senate later this month. On Social Security going broke; well that's just a flat out lie.

Mike Huckabee isn't happy about the talk that the GOP should be more open to the American people to expand their party by diminishing the views of social conservatives:

In an interview with the California newspaper The Visalia Times-Delta, Huckabee said the GOP would only further decline in influence should it alienate social conservatives — largely considered the most energetic and loyal faction of the party.

"Throw the social conservatives the pro-life, pro-family people overboard and the Republican party will be as irrelevant as the Whigs," he said in reference to the American political party that largely disbanded in the mid 1800s. "They'll basically be a party of gray-haired old men sitting around the country club puffing cigars, sipping brandy and wondering whatever happened to the country. That will be the end of the party," he said in the interview published Thursday

What he's saying is a big problem for Republicans. To be a more inclusive party they would have to try and entice Latino voters over, but since the extremists want to round up Latinos and are so opposed to anything that will handle our immigration problems, that's a "no go."

If they want to appear more moderate in the gay rights arena, then they will alienate the religious-right bloc that has been a significant part of their base for year now, and has enjoyed enormous influence within the GOP ever since Bush took office (and Rove used them to win in 2004), so that's a "no go.".

The Washington Monthly has more:

But Huckabee's point isn't wrong. If the religious-right crowd no longer feels welcome or valued in the Republican Party, and the GOP is left with a country-club base, it's not likely to do well in national elections. It might as well be "the end of the party."

On the other hand, if the Republican Party takes the culture warriors seriously, and signals to the rest of the country that the GOP is dominated by far-right activists who are principally concerned with gays, abortion, Terri Schiavo, and state-sponsored religion, the party will remain stuck where it is now. And that's not a good place to be.

It's quite a conundrum. Good luck to the whole gang.

I wouldn't write off the Republican Party, folks, because that's a very dangerous proposition. They play word games and handle the media better than most, so if they are given an inch they will take a mile. Here's the Luntz memo on health care:

GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz has authored a new messaging memo defining the Republican rhetoric on health care reform (READ FULL MEMO HERE). The memo is titled “The Language of Health Care 2009″ and it lays out the argument for “stopping the Washington takeover” of health care.” But if fully implemented it may very well stop health care reform:

Continue reading »