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Conservative populists make the elephant quake

Ignoring conservative populists--the real Middle America

Date published: 8/15/2008

A RECENT survey showed that 36 percent of Catholics considered themselves conservative, 38 percent moderate, and just 18 percent liberal. Yet 51 percent believe the government should be bigger and have more services. How can this be? Everyone knows that only the liberals want bigger government, right?

Not exactly, and this is why former Gov. Mike Huckabee has the most favorable rating among voters of any vice-presidential hopeful, according to the latest Rasmussen poll.

The majority of social conservatives stuck in the Republican Party do not agree with its core pro-big-business policies that turn a blind eye to despotic Chinese dictators and evil Saudi royalty. Many are Republicans simply because their pro-life, pro-marriage views are not welcome in the "progressive" party that holds abortion and homosexual marriage as a foundation. Republican Party leaders don't really want these "populists" in their party either, at least not in any positions of authority. They want them to vote GOP every two years and then sit at the back of the bus and shut up.

Who are these people? Why don't the Democrats want them, and why do the Republican leaders hold their noses when around them?

These are conservative populists, the millions of people who voted for Mike Huckabee despite TV ads paid for by the conservative Club for Growth that flat-out lied about his record. Conservative populists are for the most part social conservatives who are not against big government necessarily, they just want their tax dollars to get bang for the buck and not be used in ways that are both wasteful and grossly offensive to their morals.

With gas at around $4 a gallon, conservative populists are willing to pay a little more a gallon in gas tax to fix our deteriorating road system. In Virginia, the Republicans have lost the governorship twice, and now the Senate is fighting against road construction. It proudly tells the voters who sit in traffic for hours at a time that they have saved them from being "taxed." Excuse me, but standing still on a road that has needed widening since 1985 while burning $4-a-gallon gas is far more expensive than a few cents extra a day to fix the road.

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Date published: 8/15/2008