Jeff Zeleny takes an early look at conservative presidential politics in Iowa:
The ailing economy and the Tea Party's demand for smaller government have dominated Republican politics for two years, but a resurgent social conservative movement is shaping the first stage of the presidential nominating contest, complicating the strategy for candidates who prefer to focus on fiscal issues over faith.
Here in Iowa, whose caucuses next winter will open the campaign, social and religious conservatives are pressing the likely candidates on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion rather than on jobs, the budget deficit and other economic concerns that leaders of both parties expect to dominate the general election.
Hopefully, this will put to rest the fiction of a Republican Party unconcerned with social conservatism. Insofar that the Tea Party has been successful, it's in convincing a large swath of the political world that the GOP was less than concerned with gay people or abortion. Of course, that was never true, as demonstrated by the last three months, where congressional Republicans used their newfound House majority to pass a whole host of anti-abortion legislation.
Now that the primaries have begun in earnest, we should expect to see heightened moralism from the major Republican candidates, even the ones who are ostensibly focused on "fiscal" issues. Already, Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty have committed to reinstating "don't ask, don't tell," despite wide public support for openly gay service in the military. Indeed, Barbour has been emphatic about his opposition to abortion, telling an Iowa crowd that "we’re doing everything that we can to stop abortion in our state. ... And if I get elected president, I will come into office with that attitude. And that’s about 180 degrees different from the current president."
At the very least, I'll give Zeleny this: He understands that the most relevant variable for a politician isn't her previous positions but the pressures of her constituents and her relationships with party elites. Even if there were a de-emphasis on social conservatism in the Republican Party, the simple fact is that reactionary social views are valuable to the party base. For that reason alone, we should expect to hear plenty of values talk from GOP presidential contenders.
