Ben Smith, and Jon Martin at Politico: [1]
There was Sen. John McCain’s daughter and his campaign manager who last week demanded that their fellow Republicans embrace same-sex marriage. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman – the most devoted modernizer among the party’s 2012 hopefuls – won approving words from New York Times columnist Frank Rich for his call to downplay divisive values issues. The party’s top elected leaders in Congress, meanwhile, spooked by being attacked as the “party of no,” were recasting themselves as a constructive, respectful opposition to a popular president.
But outside Washington, the reality is very different. Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.
There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.
Apparently, the word is out, now, that there’s a full fledged GOP rebellion on tap now, and the GOP Leadership is going to have to deal with us. But what does that mean? What do we want them to do? I examine this, myself, this morning, in my new Pajamas Media piece, called “Getting back to GOP Prinicples” [2]
While conservatives and libertarians make up the majority of the GOP, they don’t make up even half of the leadership. The rank and file are interested in principles of conservatism and libertarianism. They want to see those principles applied to governing. The GOP leadership has no interest anymore in such matters, being more enamored with attaining and remaining in power. Those principles are just standing in their way.
Still, at some point the Republican Party needs to be eased back into this discussion, because there isn’t enough in the way of organization outside the party to represent the views of the conservative and libertarians among us. But how can that be done given the way the GOP leadership has slid off the conservative/libertarian map?
Principles are the answer.
…
Republicans as a party shouldn’t be, as they have been, focused on the idea that we need to change in order to be relevant. We need to show that our principles are already relevant and should never have been relinquished.
Go and read.