Simple math: Republicans can’t win without social conservatives

This is one of my favorite stories of the year so far — according to polling results there are more social conservatives than economic conservatives! From World Magazine:

Conventional wisdom in the Republican Party says social conservatives are too conservative to win independent voters. That “wisdom” says the GOP needs to be more moderate on social issues and stress economic issues to win moderates, independents, and elections. Not so fast, according to the “2013 Economic Values Survey,” conducted by the Public Research Institute and the Brookings Institution. Researchers concluded fiscal conservatism “has the weakest hold in American public opinion.”

Based on the response of conservatives, 38 percent of Americans are theological conservatives, 29 percent are social conservatives, and only 25 percent are economic conservatives. At a news conference announcing the data, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who is no conservative, said, “conservatives can’t win without social conservatives. It turns out that social conservatives loom larger as part of that conservative constituency and more consistently than economic conservatives do.”

He suggested that social conservatives might be the bridge between the GOP and independents and Democrats, since about one-third, 31 percent, of Democrats are theological conservatives and 19 percent are social conservatives, but only 3 percent of Democrats are economic conservatives.

Read the entire article…