How should Republicans respond?

How should Republicans respond? June 29, 2015

Pretty much all of the Republican presidential candidates, with different tones and emphases, are pro-life, anti-gay marriage social conservatives.  So are they politically doomed in today’s socially-liberal cultural climate?

From Philip Rucker & Robert Costa,  In a fast-changing culture, can the GOP get in step with modern America? – The Washington Post:

“Republicans are going to have to make inner peace about living in a same-sex marriage world,” said Pete Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush. “Our nominee can’t have serrated edges. Like it or not, any effort to create moral or social order will be seen as rigid and judgmental. . . . Grace and winsomeness are the ingredients for success in a world where cultural issues are at the fore.”

This is a profound shift for a party that a decade earlier won national elections under a banner of social conservatism. In 2004, Bush successfully used his opposition to gay marriage as a wedge issue in his reelection campaign.

“If these topics are the big ones in the general election — rather than the failure of President Obama and Hillary Clinton as his third term, foreign policy, and of course the economy — we can’t win,” said Austin Barbour, a Mississippi-based operative who runs the super PAC supporting former Texas governor Rick Perry. “We need to be sensible, logical and reasonable on the social issues, but also make sure the debate isn’t entirely about them.”

The shifts to the left on social issues may be reinforcing pessimistic beliefs among Republicans about the direction of the country. In a CBS/New York Times poll last month, 88 percent of Republicans said the nation was on the wrong track, compared with 63 percent of Americans as a whole. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Democrats said the country was headed in the right direction.

“When a young voter sees a Republican coming, many of them roll their eyes and wonder why they can’t get with modern life,” said Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under George W. Bush.

The party’s business wing has been evolving quickly on many social issues, particularly on gay rights. Religious liberty measures in Indiana and Arkansas that many saw as discriminatory against gays drew immediate backlash earlier this year from local chambers of commerce — not to mention corporations such as Wal-Mart, the red-state retail giant — prompting reversals from Republican governors.

“The country is changing, the culture is changing, the demographics are changing and politics is changing,” said former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, now president of the Financial Services Roundtable.

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