Tony Perkins, Family Research Council: Fiscal conservatives who have recently signaled they were ready to abandon--if not blow up their compact with--social conservatives, now appear to be in full retreat after their fiscal and defense candidate, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, brought up the rear in the latest GOP primary. In an op-ed on Real Clear Politics, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey now worries that social conservatives who support Mike Huckabee are threatening the "long standing unity" of social, fiscal, and defense conservatives. How is this possible if, as Armey previously suggested, social conservatives and their issues are not important? The coalition only survives if the policy concerns of all three coalition members are given equitable treatment and focus. Clearly the message of Mike Huckabee and his present success have made clear that Republicans can succeed only if social conservatives are a part of the coalition--and they will only be a part of the coalition if their issues are given the priority they deserve.ARRA Editor: While in the Republican Party the social conservative message is equally important and cannot be ignored, positions that advance fiscal socialism or ignore national security will also lead to failure. Social conservatives cannot assume that economic or pro-national defense conservatives, even if they are also social conservatives, will blindly follow a "social conservative" candidate if that candidate's message or past record appears to ingnore the economic and national defense or even potentially hints as further movements to the "left."
Tags: Christian Conservative, conservative, Economic, FRC, National Defense, social conservatives, Tony Perkins To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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