Whither the Battleground Counties?

If there is one phrase local (usually) politicians like to use to describe themselves (here in Livingston County, next door to Oakland) it is "fiscal conservative". Obama and the Dems would do well, IMO, to co-opt this phrase to describe thoughtful tax policies AND prudent spending priorities. "Fiscal "Conservative" does NOT automatically mean "tax cut"...there's a lot more to it than that.

From the linked story
"Four years later, a much different God Gap has emerged: between religious conservatives and the secular establishment of the Republican Party. It was the marriage of those two constituencies - so-called country club Republicans and more down-market churchgoers - that fueled a remarkable 25-year Republican ascent, from Ronald Reagan to 1994's Republican Revolution to George W. Bush."
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The churchgoers are going to find out that money always wins. Of course a lot of the bigger blowhards on what is called "Christian right" have a healthy love of money, so there is some crossover there.

Conservatism as practiced by the GOP has failed.

The GOP has proven itself to be a motley collection of incompetent fear-mongers with nothing but an ideology of contempt for the workings of government. This has not been a failure of the 'Republican Brand' - whatever that is supposed to mean. It has been a failure of conservative ideals. The fact that the GOP is so concerned about the Republican Brand only supports the point that they were a hollow party buoyed along by a masterful marketing campaign that misled people into supporting them.

Look at the reasons that most voters gave for supporting McCain. All they had were incorrect, ignorant misinformation about Barack Obama. The GOP has left a trail of fear and ignorance in the minds of this nation's citizenry and corruption, bankruptcy and chaos in the halls of government.

And judging from some of the emails that I am receiving from panicked conservatives it is clear that they are not yet finished causing destruction in this country.

Hey, thanks for this ultra-fine hash of county politics! Now where did I put that rat's @ss had lying around...
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But seriously, we just had the most historic, scrotum-tightening Presidential race in memory, and all you can do is write about ways for Republicans to win back counties?
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Are you in shock or something? If so, just drink a fifth of whiskey, sleep it off, and get back to us with something that matters.

Are nine states to turn?
In the battleground counties
The war is turning

I actually think that Amy's observtions in this instance are important. The grand coalition of religious conservatives and fiscal conservatives is indeed breaking apart. The difference beiong that genuine fiscal conservatives appreciate intelligence and problem solving ability and the Religious Right has no use for such concepts.

It's a surprise that they held together this long!

A few things that those who would consider themselves social conservatives need to come to grip with:
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1) They are a minority group. There are not enough of them to win anything alone. Despite many policies and trends to the contrary, America is NOT a Christian country by law. The Constitution, in fact, very explicitly highlights that no single religion shall dominate this country.
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2) Similarly, the extremely dominant majority of their representation, white-Christians, is becoming a minority as well. In approximately 25 years the white race will no longer be the majority population in the United States.
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Now when you combine those two things, it places today's version of social conservatives under the inevitable force of time. They are by definition 'elitists'. So rooted in their belief, as many religious people have the capacity to be in order to be considered faithful and true, that they naturally consider those who do not share their views to be "wrong". This naturally creates an environment of exclusion vice inclusion. An exclusive group can only dictate policy by one means, numbers. It must have the majority in order to have it's policies adopted by the remaining population (the 'outsiders' if you will).
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Now take that understanding and apply facts #1 & #2 above, and you have a self-defeating faction. The Republican party is largely built up of this faction because, after all, conservatism as defined in dictionary sense is about sticking to the old, traditional things, and avoiding the risks of change. This means a natural leaning towards the way things were for centuries. White Christians being the majority and dominant force in the world. However, while the pace at which change comes is variable, change is inevitable. As such, the inevitable diminishing of white Christians as the majority in America is inevitable, and unless the Republican party finds a way to be more inclusive to other factions and ideals in the country, the party will continue to diminish as one of their major constituencies shrinks as a percentage of the overall population.

I want to add something to ensure I'm perfectly clear about what I was saying before.
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Social conservatives (translation: White Christians primarily) do not need to change their views or values. They are their own, and they have every right to them. What has to change is the degree to which a political party defines itself by such an exclusive and diminishing group if it is to remain relevant. The problem with that of course lies within the fact that if the party that holds a large number of exclusion minded people starts including more people of different cultures, races, values, etc. then the exclusionary constituents tend to rebel and you have dissension.
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What you then end up with is awkwardly enough evident in the McCain campaign. You end up with walking a tight rope of trying to figure out how to bring in "others" without losing a large portion of your normal constituency that by definition does not like "others". You keep fighting that battle over and over until finally you decide the exclusionary force is not big (relevant) enough to hurt you if you lose some comparative to how many "others" you need to gain. The Republican party has not seen the social conservatives diminish in influence near enough to be at that point, so they remain in this political limbo, and it is killing them.