Today’s New York Times features a front-page, above-the-fold story on fissures within the conservative wings of the Republican Party, leading up to next month’s midterm elections. The question is, why are President Bush and his party so unpopular with the American people?
Neoconservatives such as the Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol argue that it is because the Administration is not hawkish enough (!) on foreign policy. Budget balancers such as Grover Norquist argue that deficit spending, along with Iraq and Katrina, are the root issue. Still others, such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, argues the problem is religious voters.
Armey argues that economic conservatism, not social conservatism, is the answer to what ails the GOP. In so doing, he calls James Dobson and Focus on the Family a “gang of thugs” and “really nasty bullies.”
Dobson, rightly I think, responds that the GOP can decide whether it wants voters concerned preeminently about issues such as fostering a culture of life and, if not, conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics can go elsewhere.
This debate is not of ultimate importance. Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party will last past Armageddon, if they make it that long. It is important to see, however, how the country club wing of the “pro-life, pro-family” Party will choose to view the constituencies that care about such things. Religious voters shouldn’t see themselves as a voting bloc or an interest group to be appeased by Party officials. We’re up to much more than that.
But, at the same time, neither should we throw up our hands and say to the Republican Party, “To whom shall we go?” We only say that to One who is not a democrat or a republican, but, at the end of the day, a Monarchist (John 6:68).
