Sassenach wrote:I don't think it's necessary (or indeed realistic) for the Republicans to move across and start to endorse things like gay marriage or abortion. All that's required is for them to accept that it will not be possible going forward to legislate them out of existence and drop the issue. Yes, that would represent a change, but it's one that plenty of conservatives would be comfortable with and many have already made.

Indeed. What strikes me as odd is that there were Tea Party candidates who were making public stands on social issues, when the whole point about the Tea Party is that fiscal issues are the most important.

It's not that Republicans should have changed their views, but it's about how important they see it as pushing those views (and the way that some of them express their views). It's about priorities, and clarity of message.

In times of financial hardship, other issues will not resonate well with voters. When people are feeling more secure economically, they might be more open to thinking about social issues or moral questions.

And at the same time, there has been a general 'liberalising' trend in the West, which will always present a problem for conservatives who - in the tradition of conservatism as the world knows it, not just the US - want to hold social change off, or return to an earlier age. I don't think that the 'Lavender Sweep# really represents a major change, but it is part of a gradual change to acceptance and regularisation of homosexuality. The more that people get to know homosexuals and find them not to be amoral monsters but, well, regular people who have a different taste in sexual partners, the less open they will be to be attacks on homosexuals, even if they don't actually support homosexuality.