Republicans seek Iowa social conservatives’ nod

THOMAS BEAUMONT, Associated Press

Sunday, November 20, 2011

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Six Republican presidential candidates dove deep into how their religious faith influences their public life, during a free-flowing forum before a large, influential audience of social conservatives in early-voting Iowa on Saturday.

At an event sponsored by an Iowa Christian group, the candidates tried at times to gain a political edge with potent Iowa conservatives. But some of the discussion turned uncharacteristically personal, with the would-be presidents tearfully revealing formative chapters that shaped their faith.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose recent rise has renewed scrutiny of his two divorces, admitted taking the advice of a recovering alcoholic to soothe the demons he had treated for years with his own national ambition.

“I wasn’t drinking but I had precisely the symptoms of someone who was collapsing under this weight,” Gingrich said. “And I found myself, this emerging national figure ... trying to understand where I had failed, why I was empty and why I had to turn to God.”

Businessman Herman Cain, accused of sexually harassing four subordinates more than a decade ago, didn’t address the accusations which he has denied vigorously. But he acknowledged not being home enough during his career’s meteoric rise to the top of a national restaurant chain, and he credited his marriage with helping him after being diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

“Before my wife and I were about to head to the care, I said, ‘I can do this,”’ Cain recalled. “She said, ‘We can do this.”’

The event occurred while many evangelical conservatives, a powerful force in Iowa’s caucuses, still look for a more conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has not courted this segment of the voting bloc aggressively in his second bid for the GOP nomination.

The format was a sharp departure from the 10 GOP debates that have already been held in the 2012 campaign. Instead of the rapid questions and timed answers of the televised debates, Saturday’s forum was held around a large dining table on a stage with fall-themed decorations, aimed at resembling a family Thanksgiving dinner scene. Pollster Frank Luntz moderated the two-hour event, which often flowed conversationally.

Notably absent was Romney, a leader in most national and Iowa polls this year but who has not campaigned vigorously for the social conservative vote.

Also missing was former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is focusing his early-state campaign on New Hampshire, where his moderate positions on gay rights are not as glaring a liability.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has campaigned aggressively for the support of evangelical conservatives in Iowa, tearfully confessed to have resisted loving his severely disabled daughter.

“I had decided that the best thing I could do was to treat her differently and not love her the way I did because it wouldn’t hurt as much if I’d lost her,” Santorum told an audience of 3,200 in a large, evangelical Des Moines church.

And Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann described the pain and uncertainty of her parents’ divorce when she was an adolescent girl, but held back somewhat when asked what prompted her Christian awakening when she was 16.

“It is amazing to me how God uses those challenges to shape your life,” Bachmann said of her parents’ divorce, noting how it influenced her decision to foster more than 20 children in addition to her five biological children.

Texas’ two candidates, Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Rick Perry, did not offer revealing chapters from their lives as the others did. Paul described his early life during the Depression in Pennsylvania, and Perry, his upbringing in rural west Texas. Perry also described feeling lost upon his discharge from the Air Force at age 27.

“I couldn’t understand what it was that was missing out of my life,” Perry said, describing the moment he turned to his Christian faith. “In every person’s heart and soul there is a hole that can only be filled by the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Santorum was the most aggressive in trying to establish political edge during the event, arguing that the president must be a cultural warrior pushing for social change that reflects the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

Despite the religious theme, the discussion nevertheless revealed deep divisions about the role of government in shaping the nation’s culture, illustrated by the libertarian-leaning Paul’s rejection of an activist presidency.

“The goal of government isn’t to mold society and mold people,” Paul said. “The goal of government is to preserve liberty.”

There was little dissention, prompting Luntz to comment: “You have more that you agree on than those small things you disagree on.”

Still, the candidates were looking for votes with only six weeks until the caucuses and no consensus choice for evangelical conservatives in Iowa.

A recent Des Moines Register poll showed 37 percent of likely GOP caucus participants described themselves as born-again Christians. They are an influential bloc, and rallied to oppose the retention of the three Iowa Supreme Court justices on the ballot a year ago after the court’s unanimous 2009 decision to nullify the state’s statutory ban on gay marriage.

While the trend in Iowa is to stress the cultural issues, Santorum said there has been little national focus on issues central to this committed segment of the GOP base. Over 10 debates, there have been only five questions on cultural issues.

The crowded field of social conservatives has created somewhat of an opening for Romney in Iowa to stand out among economic conservatives. Last year, long-time former Gov. Terry Branstad won the nomination for governor over Vander Plaats, who campaigned largely on social issues.

Branstad, who attracted all six candidates to a political fundraiser after the forum, said Iowa Republicans’ greater concern with the economy and spending could be an advantage for Romney.

“I think it could potentially help him here,” he said. “You need to address the issues Iowans care about, and that’s restoring fiscal responsibility and jobs.”

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More like this story

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 6 months ago

Those Iowans ... looking for a social conservative who is not a nutjob; or alternatively, someone like Romney or Hunstman but more socially conservative.

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 6 months ago

Looking for another nutjob? Take your pick: Rick Santorum, who equates homosexuality with bestiality; Michelle Bachman, who wants to reduce government to "it's original size"; Ron Paul, who does not support liberty for women or gays; or Rick Perry, who believes in secession and created more mimimum wage jobs and executions than anyone else over the past ten years.

A pestilence has fallen over the land, when none of the GOP candidates can say something rational without getting booed off the stage.

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 6 months ago

There you go again. Name-calling. i have given up on the idea of keeping a tally.

wcywing 1 year, 6 months ago

actually Ron Paul is for the states to decide to legalize gay marraige. his stances on abortion is mixed, he is against it, but wants the states to make that decision. he is for stem cell research. I rather have Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, than Santorum, who didn't win reelection in his state. Bachman, who doesn't know US history. Obama, where is the hope and change?

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 6 months ago

We have a tough choice to make next year. Obama has badly disappointed his supporters and infuriated the GOP, but the GOP wasn't prepared to work with him on anything so all that fury is wasted. Do we stick with a known disappointment or go with somene unknown who could be worse? Don't laugh - it's how Clinton and Bush II got re-elected.

wcywing 1 year, 6 months ago

social conservatives and the so called left are both equally bad. leave people alone.

wcywing 1 year, 6 months ago

what about limited government, did the GOP forgot about that? hmm?

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 6 months ago

The right wing believes in using government power to push OTHER PEOPLE (the little people) around; but not in safety or ethical regulations.

wcywing 1 year, 6 months ago

GOP make laws that interfere with people's private lives.

bluesfan13 1 year, 6 months ago

So you don't really want gay people to not have families, you just don't want them to have the financial benefits of heterosexual families?

gofish 1 year, 6 months ago

Spoken like a true communist. You would fit in well with a certain group of politicians and soldiers who nailed a certain radical individual to a cross.

wcywing 1 year, 6 months ago

at what cost, civil liberties?

Sequoia 1 year, 6 months ago

So, if something is immoral, then it is not liberty? This doesn't make any sense whatsover. One man's moral corruption is another man's civil liberty, right? I mean, liberty is the freedom to do something even though someone else tells you that it is immoral, right? One man's free speech is another's blasphemy. That's what "liberty" means.

Look at the contortions a movement conservative has to go through to fit legislated morality into a platform of small government. Look at Graceful talking about "rationality" in one post and "moral corruption" in another. It's just painful to watch one shallow talking point bump up against another. Why not just advocate for small, rational government and individual liberty across the board? The philosophy is so much neater and cleaner.

All this bleating about the morality of abortion/gays is all about fundraising and forging an alliance between free-market conservatives and Christians (an alliance that would have shocked Christians a few generations ago... for much of this nation's history, Christians were actually very skeptical of Wall Street. So-called "social conservatism" is a residue of the 1960s. The sooner we flush ALL the Baby Boomers' nonsense out of our culture, the better). Since when do politicians really care about morality? And really, why should they? A politician is the last person I care to hear give an opinion on what is moral or not. I don't want a "moral" government. I want cold, hard logic and reason. I don't care what Jesus would do as a politician. It's an absurd thought.

Movement conservatives are shooting themselves in the foot with these arguments. The next generation of conservatives understand that gay marriage is a family value. Conservatives always tout the value of a nuclear family and monogomy over promiscuity, and gay marriage fits right in with that. Conservatives can easily take this issue away from Democrats if they simply hold to the line that morality is not an adequate justification for government action (the exact same argument we make to question social spending programs). Don't tell me about morality. Tell me about the objective, verifiable costs and the benefits. Period.

asb 1 year, 6 months ago

Take government imposed morality out of the GOP platform and all that's left is libertarian business policy

asb 1 year, 6 months ago

If the people, through the GOP platform and subsequent laws, establish and enforced morality, it is government imposed morality. Making it legal doesn't change government's role of enforcer. So, I repeat, without that part of the GOP platform, there's nothing left but a libertarian and corporate platform. If you'd respond to what I post, rather than what you want me to have posted, you'll make a lot more sense.

bluesfan13 1 year, 6 months ago

Isn't that the whole point of "Civil Liberties"? To prevent the majority from imposing their will upon the minority.

asb 1 year, 6 months ago

As we've agreed before, law and morality are linked tightly. A government without morality is without law (but not automatically leading to tyrany any more than anarchy or our present oligarchy. That is as much a principle of the left as the right. The argument is over what morality to apply. The Right want's mostly dogmatic Christian morality to apply, while the left wants social and common good morality to apply.

asb 1 year, 6 months ago

Nonsense, the left is as moral as any other large political persuasion. Your hate makes your judgement irrational.

Sequoia 1 year, 6 months ago

Of course I accept that society can set limits on behavior. That's the whole body of criminal and civil law. But certainly you agree that society's power over the individual is limited by the Bill of Rights? We're not a majority rule society. We never have been. Basic history and civics here.

How is it clear that I'm no conservative? You remember the American Revolution? Ever read the Declaration of Indpendence? One of our founding principles is that the legitimacy of the government comes from the consent of the governed, not from the divine right of kings. Again, basic history and civics here.

Ever heard of Sharia law? That's government based on morality. Every dictator and tyrant calls themselves moral. This is what we revolted against. Are you saying that anything Barack Obama calls "moral" is therefore legitimate?

Forgive me if I reject any definition of "conservative" provided by someone with such little knowledge of, and contempt for, the very things that we should be striving to conserve.

bluesfan13 1 year, 6 months ago

-And make no mistake that when you decry morality in government all you are really saying is "I want to impose my own morality on the people without their consent."-

So it's only ok when you want to impose your morality on others, not when others want to impose their own moral code?

asb 1 year, 6 months ago

Prior to legal abortion, enforcement was so lax nationally that self-performed and backroom DNC work cost many a woman her fertility or life. If you're going to outlaw presently legal abortion without a horrific mortality, enforcement will be needed. It won't happen, so back to coat hangers and unexplained deaths we go.

asb 1 year, 6 months ago

Early term abortion is a tough personal choice, not the government's or the church's. Your's is the mis-information Grace. Strong enforcement deters backroom abortions. Look at prohibition: only when law enforcement was bought off did speakeasies sprout widely. And holey bovine; " . . . due to infection, not the procedure itself . . . " Infection from what, stubbed toes, tonsilites? Denial of the role that illegal abortions' impacts had on pregnant women in the lead up to Roe vs. Wade is dishonest. Does this sound like the illegal drug arguement? Yes. Same thing. A church based morallity code, if passed in a democracy, is fine, but not on lies and appeals to your dogma.

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