I'm not really a big fan of Sean Hannity, but he did give James Dobson (who I'm not a big fan of) a lot of time to make his case for not endorsing Rudy Giuliani (who I'm also not a real big fan of). So why am I posting about this? Because this is where the GOP is right now, fractured and IMHO a sinking ship. The social conservatives are just the latest to make noises on bailing out on them.
Conservative Belle made this point recently:
If the conservative Christians are as powerful as they believe, then why can't they put their full weight behind a second-tier candidate who is pro-life (Brownback, Huckabee, Paul, Tancredo, Hunter, Keyes) and bring them to the front of the tier? If they are so influential in the political arena, they should be able to promote this candidate enough to soar them to the top.
The lack of top tier candidates at the recent "Values Voters" debates would seem to indicate that they are the constituency that can be ignored. The last candidate the social conservatives had an effect on was probably Ronald Reagan. Bush wasn't their number one pick in '88, neither was Dole in '96, and I believe GW Bush was nominated by social conservatives with huge reservations. To his credit, GW did come through with his Supreme Court nominations but only after massive blowback from the Harriet Miers nomination.
