At the recent 2010 Values Voter Summit, the bigwigs of the social conservative movement turned out in force. Tony Perkins, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Senator Jim DeMint, Newt Gingrich, they were all there. The attendees of the summit participated in a straw poll of who they’d like to see as the Republican nominee for 2012. Of course, this in no way means that actual voters will coalesce around the winner of the poll, but it’s still interesting to see who is selected so we can get a sense of the kind of candidate that conservatives will support in the upcoming midterms. Who is the winner, you ask? Is it the gaffe-prone Mrs. Palin? Maybe it’s flip-flopping Mitt Romney, who was for universal health care before he was against it? Perhaps the bastion of family values himself, Newt Gingrich? Well, if you’re like me and you guessed someone along those lines, you’d be dead wrong. The winner of the 2010 Values Voter Summit is Rep. Mike Pence, R-IN. Which begs the question, who is Mike Pence, and why do social conservatives love him?
Mike Pence is your run of the mill far right religious Republican. He opposed expanding hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He supports a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as being between only a man and a woman. He says that “Roe vs. Wade was legally poorly conceived and morally wrong.” He advocates for more prayer in the public sphere. So let’s see, anti-gay, anti-pro choice, pro-Bible, he seems to cover all the bases. And just to make the Tea Party happy, he’s also anti-TARP, anti-taxes, and anti-social spending.
We have seen, in the past few months, the fall of the moderate in the Republican Party. Charlie Crist had to drop out of the Florida Primary. Mike Castle lost to Christine O’Donnell. Lincoln Chaffee is behind in the polls. And now one of the front runners for the GOP nomination is the complete antithesis of moderation. Mike Pence’s hard line conservative views make him out of touch with the majority of the American people. As the Democrats inability to stay on message, find issues that resonate well with voters, and inspire the population continues with no end in sight, the Republicans had a chance to reintroduce their entire political agenda to a disillusioned populace. The Republicans could have finally offered constructive criticism and good governing strategies. They could have shown themselves as a viable governing force, with practical, innovative solutions. Instead, they regurgitate failed Bush tax policies, profess blind adherence to shifting will of the free market, and seek revenge on social liberalism. This strategy of ignoring reality may work well politically in the short term, but in the long run it will result in the Republicans quickly losing support.
Mike Pence is simply a product of the modern Republican Party. To be taken seriously in GOP circles nowadays, you have to bow down at the altar of extreme conservatism, and anyone who refuses to support such blatantly preposterous positions is promptly sent packing. For the good of the country, I hope that the American people realize the irrationality behind the modern conservative movement and refuse to fall for their parlor tricks. Unfortunately, it seems as though Pence’s like-minded conservative allies are successfully pulling the wool over America’s eyes.
(Image credit: http://2012obama.com/presidential-polls/mike-pence-vs-obama-in-2012-presidential-election/)
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So they of the Romney-fearing blue persuasion think they’ve found his new spoiler in Mike Pence. That is, radio chat show host turned legislator Mike Pence. There will be no Nominee Pence, just as there was no Nominee Huckabee and nor will there be a Nominee Palin. Hey, this is a good thing for us to not nominate radio hosts, tv hosts and those who shamelessly quit office prematurely to pursue the fortunes on the media-lit fringes of politics.
Except for Huckabee, I haven’t anything personally against the above names; I just know none of them can win the Presidency. If Obama could handpick his opponent in 2012, he’d have a tough time deciding between Palin and Huck. Pence would be better than those two, but by all means he’s no real challenger. It’d be like sending a slightly sharper version of Sean Hannity up against the President of the United States, where our guy’s words don’t get past predictable talking points and, what, follow-up questions, never heard of them.
Anyway, the more the merrier. It’s funny, is it not, that all we heard in print and tv media in 2008 was how straw polls were silly and unscientific and not representative and really didn’t matter at all because they can be rigged by buying tickets to the events and putting supporters up and paying travel expenses all to stuff the ballot box. That’s the conclusion every article from 2008’s cycle had about every straw poll Romney won. Now, now we here how Pence is going to be the nominee because he won a VVS straw poll, lol. And how the Tea Party is going to thwart Mitt Romney as a consequence of this straw poll, neverminding all the while that in scientfic polls Tea Partiers respond Romney’s the top name on their list of whom they’d like to see serve as our next President.
Hypocrisy can be so hilariously remedial.
I must confess that over the last two weeks of this particular particularly unhinged election cycle, despite the brief psychological refreshment I experienced for the Restoring Sanity Rally on Saturday, I have once once again begun to suss out suitable caves in the Northwest Territories of Canada to i can retire and reduce the intellectual and meaning potato sack sprint towards bottom that is each of our national political conversation.