Asking the wrong question

Kevin Drum, after posting on the GOPs behind the scenes view of Social Conservatives (AKA Fundamentalists like Dobson and the FRC crowd), asks "[A]re social conservatives ever going to catch on to the way they're being conned by the Republican Party?"

While the point is well taken, I think Kevin misses the larger picture. Both the GOP and the social conservatives have a love/hate relationship. Yes, the GOP strings them along, occasionally tossing them a bone, but the social conservatives need the GOP far more than the GOP needs the social conservatives.

The fact is, if the GOP moderated some of their social conservative views (IE, got rid to the nutball wing of the party), they would be able to replace the social conservatives with more moderates, and moderate conservatives.

In other words, if the GOP moves to the left, there are people there to attack. There is nobody to the right of the GOP. If the social conservatives abandon the GOP, they have no where else to go to. And the GOP knows this.

The only thing worse, to the fundamentalists, than voting for the GOP who gives them lip service, would be allowing the democrats to be elected. The GOP would pretty much need to engage in sodomy on top of a broken monument to the ten commandments while being spanked by underage nuns before the fundamentalists would really think of abandoning them.

For all the saber rattling the far right does about not showing up on election day, it’s clear that saber rattling is all it is. As bad as the GOP is, to the far right, there’s always something worse.