That's provocative, insult the uberblogger as well as a good friend and valued blog commenter. In the headline, no less!
What I mean to assert is that the substantive triumph of Pete Coors in the Colorado GOP Primary disproves the claim that the GOP is in the grips of the feared "Religious Right."
The RR was out in full force to get Rep Schaffer elected. He is a good man and a long time public servant; I am not happy to see him lose. Colorado has a large evangelical base. In fact, a friend of my wife pleaded with her to vote for Schaffer because the health plan at Coors funds contraception. I don't see a lot of that in Boulder, but there are some folks in El Paso County that scare me a little bit.
To summarize, in a state with a large and dedicated evangelical GOP base, a social conservative who was a good candidate could not get the nod in a GOP primary. The religious right, therefore, makes a lot of noise but does not pull the levers of the party. Quod Erat Demonstratum.
Silence, Andrew Sullivan is on holiday, you'll have to defend yourself solo...
Excellent observation JK! I've been itching to brag about how Coors' victory puts the lie to "Choice Chick's" characterizations of wascally wepubwicans and this blog is the perfect place to say so. Huzzah.
As more anti-tax moderates join the Republican party the fiscal conservatives won't have to spend as much time dealing with the cultural conservative albatrosses. More join us every day. Perhaps one day even Silence will change his colors.
Posted by: johngalt at August 11, 2004 01:35 PMBravo to Pete Coors, anyone who can incur the wrath of the Christian Coalition is OK by me. I want to believe that the religious fringe is marginal JK, but I wonder in this case if it wasn't just a case of name recognition.
Posted by: Silence Dogood at August 11, 2004 04:45 PMNo, I think in a primary, you get a little more serious voter than in a general. As an establishment candidate and a pro-lifer, Rep Shaffer had the base. I am standing by my thoery (thanks for playing!)
Posted by: jk at August 11, 2004 06:19 PMI would not say that I strongly disagree because I have not done enough research, but Colorado has never given me the impression that it has a "large and dedicated evangelical" base (well, outside of Colo Spgs anyway). I've lived in Minnesota and Iowa - 2 places where I see the RR pulling many, many more levers than Colorado. It seems to me that in Colorado there are many Republicans whose true political views skew more libertarian, at least much more so than in most other states.
Posted by: saint stephen at August 11, 2004 07:21 PMSaint,
I don't want to get defensive but I have strong belief in this point. The El Paso County/Colorado Springs folks you mention are a big block. They will vote in every primary, and have the capacity to skew elections.
We have sent very liberal Democrat and very conservative Republican senators over the years. Allard sponsored the FMA. Rep Musgrove has a special place of hate in Andrew Sullivan's heirarchy. No, Colorado is not Mississippi, but the GOP here has a substantive evangelical base. And I find it significant that they did not get their way in a GOP Primary.
I never think of RR in MN. Y'all sent Norm Coleman to the Senate (good work!) I thought it was all Wellstone people and Sugarchuck. I have much to learn.
Posted by: jk at August 12, 2004 08:46 AMDid you say C.Sprgs is in El Paso county? Coors out polled Schaffer there 57 to 43 percent. It represented 23,000 of Schaffer's 131,000 votes, and 31,000 of Coors' 202,000.
The counties that had a plurality for Schaffer were Baca, Cheyenne, Dolores, Kiowa, Kit Carson, Larimer, (Larimer?!) Phillips, Washington, (by 1 vote!) and Yuma. The problem is that except for Larimer (those people are weird) all of these rural counties delivered vote totals only in the hundreds.
http://63.147.65.175/election2004/sengop.html
Posted by: johngalt at August 13, 2004 08:28 AM