Say Anything Blog

Basically what he’s saying is that we need to change the litmus test for what it means to be a conservative.  Instead of basing the most important questions being “Are you pro-choice” or “Are you for gay marriage,” Steele thinks they should be “Are you for limited government” and “Are you for lower taxes.”

Which is undoubtedly going to tick off the Huckabee wing of the party (video here).

“They have been beating me upside the head with it and let me give it to you straight on: Wake up people. I mean what are you going to do? Are you going to kick these folks out of the party? I have watched this party self disintegrate for the last four or five years. I’ve watched this party isolate itself from itself.”

“This may be a unique opportunity to build a relationship or a bridge between the conservatives and the moderates in our party and so she asked me to serve on her board and I said well this will be good. It’ll be a pro-life conservative voice on a board with a pro-choice leadership that is looking to elect moderates. We have to elect moderates in the party.”

“For all you little folks out there who think that you’ve got me on this you don’t. My being on this board had nothing to do with lessening my conservative values or somehow appeasing them or compromising them. It had everything to do with reasserting them.”

“I wasn’t saying, ‘well now I’m really a closet moderate and I can get to play with all the big boys.’ This is stupid. What I’m saying is lets build this relationship amongst ourselves because people are watching and there are a lot of people who would join us and be a party of our efforts who are pro-choice but they love our message on money; they love our value system on family values broadly speaking so then how do we cross appeal, how do we make ourselves relevant to the 21st century electorate which is clearly of a different mindset on a host of issues.”

What Steele is being asked about is his membership on the board of the Republican Leadership Council, which wants “a Republican Party that is unified by the basic tenets of fiscal responsibility and personal freedom, but that allows for diverse opinions on social issues by its members.”

Speaking as someone who is pretty moderate on social issues (though I think abortion is an abhorrent and murderous practice, I don’t really care much emphasis on religious issues or gay marriage), I’ve got to say: This is where the Republican party needs to go.  Outside of appointing judges who will make rulings based on the Constitution and not whatever they think is “fair” there isn’t much any elected official can do on abortion.  And things like gay marriage, school prayer and whatever anti-religious outrage people like Bill O’Reilly are carping on at the moment just aren’t going to be effective national issues.

Now I’m not saying that Republicans necessarily need to forget about those issues, but nationally the GOP has got to get back to basics.  That means limited government.  Lower spending.  More personal freedom and individual responsibility.  More conservatism and less populism, basically.

That’s the choice Republicans have going forward.