I had to laugh at this CBS News headline about the GOP’s new “Pledge to America” (hmm, sounds vaguely reminiscent of something): Are Social Conservatives Losing Their Voice in the GOP?

I laughed because to me, the absence of a lot of social conservative language in this document looks like a last ditch effort, by the slowly vanishing Old Guard of the Grand Old Party, to focus on substantive issues instead of religious right extremism. But the reality is that in state after state, the social conservative far right Tea Party candidates are knocking down the GOP fat cats, no matter how long they’ve been in office.

The “Pledge to America” is an attempt to pretend the takeover isn’t really happening.

The GOP’s resistance to making the extremist social agenda of the religious right a central focus is one of the main reasons the Tea Party movement exists; there’s been a very strong fundamentalist religious component to it, right from the beginning. A prime motivator for teabaggers is their contempt for the establishment Republican Party, and the “Pledge to America” won’t change that.

And Tea Party astroturfer Dick Armey has promised that if they take control of Congress, social issues are coming to the forefront in a big way.

Social conservatives aren’t “losing their voice” — in fact, it’s louder than ever. But the GOP is wearing earplugs.