Slipping Away

Watch this video. It is about a minute and a half. I'll wait. And just in case you are not up to following orders from disembodied voices on the Internet. Good for you. Here is the money quote:

"I don't want to be in Washington another six years and watch the Republican party betray the trust of the American people again. I mean, we had the White House. We had a majority in the House and the Senate. We voted for more spending and more earmarks. Most of our senior members seem to be focused on taking home the bacon. I'm not going to be in a Republican party like that and that's not what the Republican Party is across America," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told FOX News.

So how does the changing Republican Party relate to the social conservative right? Things do not seem to be going well. At all. You see, the Social Conservatives make up 80% of the Republican Party (or is that 80% of Republican voters? No matter.), but without that other 20% they can't win elections. And that 20% is very much not interested in a Republican culture war. At all. And they will drop the Rs in a heartbeat if they go down that road.

Newsweek (yeah they get it right this time) looks at the issue.

It's just smart electoral politics; there's no good reason to bring in divisive issues when conservatives are united on fiscal discipline. But will the more staunchly libertarian members of the Tea Party—the 20 percent who aren't Republicans, or who are adamant that libertarianism means the government shouldn't decide who can and can't get married—be alienated? Perhaps, Samples says, but he hasn't seen it yet. Indeed, despite hopeful prophecies to the contrary as far back as February, there haven't been any high-profile defections. Part of it is that libertarians are holding their noses for the time being. "The socially conservative emphasis didn’t really work very well as an issue and they don’t want to blow this one," Samples says. And in fact, it's the values voters who are starting to panic, he adds: "Two or three weeks ago I was at the Family Research Council, and there seemed to be an almost desperate sense that the train was leaving the station and they weren’t on it."

No government that gets involved in social issues is going to be a small government. Those issues - if enacted - will need to be policed (do you have any idea how much a Drug War costs?). The days of "I'm against abortion so pay no attention to my spending habits" politicians on a national level are about over. The libertarians won't stand for it. Thank God.

H/T Instapundit

Update: 21 Oct 2010 0951z

Dick Morris sees what I'm seeing.

Cross Posted at Classical Values