Hot Air Headlines title of Washington Post article:
GOP wonders: Can we revive the evangelical base?
Washington Post title:
Republicans hope to spark political revival among evangelicals for 2012 race
The WaPo article starts out:
Is it possible to revive the evangelical political movement into the potent voting bloc it once was?
The answer to that question may help determine who wins the GOP presidential nomination next year, as well as whether it will be possible to defeat Barack Obama come November 2012.
While WaPo references the TEA Party, the article itself pretty much misses the whole thing.
Hot Air Headlines grabbed:
“What’s likely to happen is what a lot of us have wanted to see happen for a long time — a social conservative movement that speaks to a broader set of issues but which never strays from the foundational issues of life and family and marriage,” said longtime political operative Ralph Reed, who as a baby-faced 33-year-old leading the Christian Coalition in 1995 was dubbed “The Right Hand of God” on the cover of Time magazine…
“Among the older generation, there was a comfortable conflation between faith and partisanship. To be a Christian meant to be a Republican,” said Jonathan Merritt, a young evangelical leader whose father, Atlanta megachurch pastor James Merritt, is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. “What you’re finding is not a new evangelical left, but you’re finding a rise of political orphans.”
And my bolding is the key. The Republicans are looking for a “revival” of “Republican because Republicans rock” Evangelicals. There is, indeed, a very powerful political revival going on right now, a revival that has existed since very early in 2009. And there is, indeed, a very powerful Christian revival going on right now in the political world, a revival that has eisted since very early in 2009. And while the correlation is not a congruency, it has more in union than it does outside union.
Ruling Class Republicans have, since the beginning of their existence, depended on Christian Conservatives to vote for the RCRs as “the lesser of two evils.” And that’s key. RCRs depended on a sleeping Christian Conservative bloc that instinctually votes for whoever the Republicans put up. No more.
Ruling Class Republicans have always told Christian Conservatives “you cannot win without us.” Ronald Reagan proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that claim is not true. Regardless of RCR historical revisionism and Liberal and lamestream media (redundancy) historical revisionism, Reagan was reviled by Big Government power-brokers on both sides of the aisle as well as the bought and paid for Leftist lamestream media. But Reagan beat the Big Government Progressives of both political parties, and beat them badly (huzzah for USA and world freedom). In the process, Reagan utterly destroyed the lamestream media’s power over his message. George HW Bush ran as an “end to Reaganism” President, while riding on Reagan’s coattails. During the Clinton era, Republicans declared Reaganism dead. George W Bush, with the aid of Karl “Tokyo” Rove, threw Christian Conservatives to the wolves as he continued the “Reaganism is dead” meme while expanding Big Government.
And Barack Obama happened. While a left-of-center Republican was running as the top of the ticket, Obama ran against George W Bush (and depended on the masses who are not atuned to government activity). Karl Rove basically advised GWB to leave the Christian Conservatives and the Fiscal Conservatives hanging out to dry. Where else could they turn? Third Party? The Democrat Party was absolutely out of the question, with their radical Leftist, anti-Christian Socialist agenda.
But eight years of Republicans ignoring Christian Conservatives during the GWB era had an impact. (Ignoring the fiscal Conservatives had an impact as well, but that is the subject of another article (on someone else’s site).) In 2008, Christian Conservatives started telling the RCRs “you cannot win without us.” A complete reversal of “power.” The Ruling Class Republicans (with chunks of Democrat cross-over in the early states) chose a Left-of-Center Republican as their whipping boy nominee. The only thing that made the race close was McCain’s choosing of a Christian Conservative (Sarah Palin) as running mate.
But as I said, 2009 marked Barack Obama’s rise to power, and the resultant awakening of the sleeping giant. The question is not “Can Republicans awaken the Evangelicals?” The question is “How long will it take for all Conservatives to regain control of the Republican Party and return it to its roots?”
The Evangelicals have fully awakened. The Christian Conservatives are fully awake. And the Republican Aristocracy thinks it can rule over the Christian base, as if “Republican” > “Providence.”
No, the Republican Party is in a fight for its life. Either it returns to its roots or it dies and a new party replaces it, just as it replaced the Whig Party when the Whigs waffled.
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