re: #918 Joel

That’s my point exactly. Peggy Noonan gets a lot of respect from me. She’s a very intelligent lady and a good writer. The problem is, “playing grownup” won’t win Republicans elections. As intelligent as Noonan is, she either misses or won’t acknowledge that reality. She’s not alone there though. The “intellectual” wing of the Republican party no more realizes that they are too much of a minority to win elections in and of themselves than the hard-core social conservatives do.

I guess that’s my beef with the general tone of things here lately. There’s plenty of criticizing of those who want to purge the party of RINOs, but no explanation of how purging the party of social conservatives would help win elections. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t like the intrusive personal policies that social conservatives advocate either. Limited federal govt. would benefit all of us. The reality is though, those same social conservatives that some seem ready to jettison from the party vote just like the rest of us do. It seems to me that we need to focus on commonalities of the various branches of conservatives rather than on what divides us.