Within hours of the Republican establishment getting crushed in the New Hampshire primary, the GOP’s headquarters pushed out a voter survey that shows its inability or reluctance to support Americans’ opposition to the Democrats’ attacks on the nation’s culture and civic society.
The survey, sent out by Chris Carr, Political Director of the Republican National Committee, asked voter preference among the — then — nine candidates; within hours Christie and Fiorina dropped out. Upon choosing a candidate, the survey asked the respondent to choose which issue “should be the centerpiece of the 2016 GOP platform.”
The list included “economy/jobs, taxes, immigration/border security, fighting terrorism, health care protecting the Second Amendment, and constitutionalism.” Note a word about the life issues. Not a word about marriage and family.
Pro-life leaders were quick to complain.
“Hopefully this was an oversight and nothing more,” said Frank Cannon, President of the American Principles Project, told Breitbart News.
It would be a colossal mistake for the Republican Party to run away from social issues as it did in 2008 and 2012. The so-called ‘truce strategy’ — the idea that if we just shut up on the social issues, we can win — has proven itself to be terrible electoral politics. There’s no need to keep banging our heads against the wall.
Ryan Bomberger, Chief Creative Officer of the Radiance Foundation, told Breitbart News, “It’s the exact same failed approach the RNC took with their Growth and Opportunity Project, pretending that social issues don’t matter.” He continued,
Democrats boldly proclaim and promote their party’s platform. The GOP establishment, in all of its duplicitousness, acts like it is ashamed of its own principles and that the base of the GOP will, somehow, magically forget what those are. The Party of Lincoln needs to stop being the Grand Ole Placaters.
Eric Scheidler, Executive Director of Pro-Life Action League, told Breitbart News, “”How do you ignore abortion in a voter survey like this when the abortion issue is taking center stage like never before?”
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets last year to protest Planned Parenthood’s horrific practice of harvesting and selling body parts from aborted babies, and Congress just put a bill defunding Planned Parenthood on the president’s desk for the first time in history. Abortion is an issue of vital concern to voters, but Republican Party leaders don’t want to hear about it. No wonder anti-establishment candidates are getting such traction.
After the last presidential election, Cannon’s American Principles Project produced a thorough after-action report which argued the combination of economic issues with civic and social issues are a winner for GOP candidates. It appears the GOP is still wrestling with this lesson.
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