JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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- #41
The Futile Search for Fiscal Conservative/Social Moderate Holy Grail | The American Conservative
Both parties’ national conventions should remind us — yet again — that the most underserved segment of the American electorate is the socially conservative economic populists (or fiscal realists, as I would describe myself): the Perotistas. The Buchanan Brigades. The Michael Lindites. They’re manipulated and exploited by Republicans, scorned and hated by progressive Democrats. Decades of Republican Southern Strategizing hasn’t helped either; it bitterly divided socially conservative whites from socially conservative blacks and Hispanics, and reinforced each party’s respective grip on these groups.
This election cycle’s greatest threat to the two-party monopoly came internally, via Rep. Ron Paul’s insurgent campaign of social traditionalism and grain-alcohol economic libertarianism.