Ronald Reagan had a wonderful 13th Commandment – Thou Shalt Speak No Evil of a Fellow Republican. Reagan succeeded because he united the three major wings of the GOP, the defense conservatives whose primary concerns were with defeating international communism, economic conservatives who focused mainly on preserving free markets and social conservatives for whom the defense of traditional values such as life and marriage were preiminent.
Reagan’s approach was a practical embodiment of National Review senior editor Frank Meyer’s “Fusionism,” the common sense understanding that for the GOP to win national elections, it had to bring together a coalition of mostly like-minded – not lock-step automatons – people who were able to focus on the areas in which they agreed and worry less about the issues on which they disagreed.
A lot of folks in all three camps of the GOP have forgotten this fundamental lesson. Don Surber, columnist of the Charleston (WVA) Daily Mail notes that a lot of folks who now are encouraging the GOP to abandon its social conservative wing need to take another look at how Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential race – it wasn’t on a platform of social liberalism.
