They'd Rather Switch Than Fight
BARNES, FRED
They'd Rather Switch Than Fight The predictable move right by Republican presidential candidates. by FReD baRnes The sudden embrace of social conservatism by top Republican presidential...
...Because Romney’s switch is the most sweeping, it’s received the most attention and the most press criticism...
...We should be tolerant, fair, open, and we should understand the rights that all people have in our society,” he said...
...It tells me the movement is surprisingly healthy,” says Bell...
...More recently, one party has become reliably conservative on the broad range of social issues (Republicans), the other mostly liberal on those issues (Democrats...
...Their switch on abortion was greeted by quiet media acceptance...
...I want to give them the benefit of the doubt,” says Perkins...
...The rush of Republican candidates to social conservatism points up a striking political fact...
...With some exceptions, social conservatives accept their changes as genuine or at least steps in a positive direction...
...If you switch back, “you’re in no man’s land,” a politician without a political base...
...So a stampede of Democrats who sought their party’s presidential nomination after 1980 abandoned their opposition to abortion...
...They not only put themselves on the side of party activists and liberal interest groups, they get right with elite opinion and the media...
...This pushed Romney to regard all human life, from conception, as worthy of legal protection...
...There’s one issue on which social conservatives admire Giuliani: his strong opposition to Islamic radicalism and eagerness to lead the fight against it...
...He changed after the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 legalized gay marriage in the state...
...I don’t remember any attacks [on Democratic switchers] from the side that benefited from their conversion,” says Republican strategist Jeff Bell, coauthor with Princeton professor Robert P. George of the forthcoming book Social Conservatism...
...This, in turn, has forced presidential candidates of both parties to align themselves accordingly...
...Now he favors overturning Roe v. Wade, the opposite of the position he took in 1999...
...And Rudy Giuliani, the ex-mayor of New York, has sought to take the edge off his social liberalism, even suggesting he’d nominate Supreme Court justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade...
...Perkins applies that to Romney, saying he “may have seen the light...
...It’s the same for Republicans, only in their case it’s a pro-choice candidate who has the extreme disadvantage...
...For Democrats, switching is painless...
...I would appoint judges that interpreted the Constitution rather than invented it,” he said...
...Rather, it’s quite normal, it’s absolutely necessary, and it’s likely to work...
...Switchers on social issues usually stay switched...
...Over the two decades after the Roe v. Wade ruling, the two parties sorted themselves out on abortion, Republicans emerging as the pro-life party, Democrats the pro-choice party...
...And when presidential candidates do just that, they’re likely to be rewarded...
...They see it as someone who has seen the light...
...The list included Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Harkin, and Jesse Jackson...
...There’s a bonus in all this for social conservatives...
...Both Newsweek and liberal columnists have taken umbrage at Romney’s move to the right...
...Nothing like this happened when Democrats changed sides...
...For Republicans, it’s anything but easy...
...Whatever the motive, Romney’s flips have conveniently put him in sync with Republicans nationally...
...It was Democrats with presidential ambitions who transformed the switch on social issues—especially on abortion— into a normal political event...
...On gay marriage, however, social conservatives fault McCain for refusing to back the proposed constitutional amendment that would bar same-sex marriage...
...All those Democratic presidential candidates in the 1980s and 1990s who switched sides on abortion from pro-life to pro-choice have stayed put...
...True, there’s a large element of pandering when a candidate switches positions on abortion, gay marriage, and other social issues with an eye to gaining votes...
...He’s flipped on abortion, gay rights, and embryonic stem cell research, as Jennifer Rubin detailed in these pages a few weeks back (“Mitt Romney’s Conversion,” Feb...
...McCain gets credit from social conservatives for his pro-life voting record in Congress...
...It’s so much a part of the Republican party that people feel the need to come to terms with it,” Bell adds...
...McCain and Giuliani too have been taken to task in the press...
...Senator John McCain of Arizona has changed his view on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, from supporting it to favoring its reversal...
...by FReD baRnes The sudden embrace of social conservatism by top Republican presidential candidates has been widely misunderstood...
...But for a Republican seeking his party’s nomination, shifting to the right on social issues is hardly shocking...
...In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, he said he believes “in a woman’s right to choose,” but implied that as president he would appoint justices like Antonin Scalia who might overturn that right...
...Conservatives don’t see it that way,” Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention told Newsweek...
...Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, says you only get to flip once on social issues...
...The movement is a somewhat amorphous body that is dominated by religious conservatives...
...Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush did so after becoming pro-lifers...
...It’s been portrayed, particularly in the media, as political pandering of the first order— and nothing more...
...On marriage, Giuliani said, it “should be between a man and a woman...
...With Republicans, a prochoice nominee would spark a pro-life candidacy...
...The newly minted social conservative who’s made the most drastic move is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney...
...But he’s tried to soften the blow...
...Romney has explained that a conversation with a Harvard scientist in 2004 led to his changed view of abortion and embryonic stem cell research...
...When they switch and endorse social conservatism, elite opinion is appalled and the press plays up their supposed insincerity...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly STandard...
...Were Democrats somehow to anoint a pro-lifer as their presidential candidate, that would surely prompt a pro-choice challenger to run as an independent or third party nominee...
...This is largely true for Republican switchers now...
...Giuliani has the most difficult task in appealing to social conservatives because he hasn’t repudiated his support for legalized abortion and gay unions...
...Nonetheless, McCain said last week that it’s “a false claim to say I have changed my position...
...The scientist said, according to Romney, that killing 14-day-old embryos was not a moral issue...
...Just as he’d been publicly prochoice, Romney had also been a champion of gay rights...
...The threat of Islam is a moral issue,” says Perkins...
...As New York mayor, he signed domestic partnership legislation and still favors legal recognition of gay unions...
...Reversing Roe v. Wade is consistent with his anti-abortion record, he insisted...
...That’s in the mix with the social issues...
...For all those Democrats, switching was necessary, since a pro-lifer has little or no chance of winning the Democratic nomination...
...Liberals and the press, however, can’t see a lurch toward social conservatism as anything but a crass political maneuver...
Vol. 12 • February 2007 • No. 24
