I long for the day when rational people resume control of the GOP and put an end to the fundamentalist influence described so well by Andrew Sullivan in The Conservative Soul.
I long for that day because I am sick and tired and more-than-a-shade furious about the debates that are distracting the party’s attention from governance issues (like how to balance the federal budget while still providing for those who cannot provide for themselves).
Sadly, no debate seems to distract the party more from governance issues than the debate over stem cell research.
In a Boston Globe article yesterday, we learn that despite Mitt Romney’s capitulation to the fundamentalists, they want more …
In the heated debate among conservatives over whether Mitt Romney deserves their vote, the focus has been largely on whether his big swings to the right on social issues are sincere.
But on the charged issue of stem cell research, he’s facing conservative criticism of a different shade: that he hasn’t swung far enough.
Unlike many on the right, Romney supports research on excess embryos created during fertility treatments. Because couples are making embryos to have a baby, he reasons, it is ethical to use the leftovers for research when they would otherwise just be discarded.
Romney’s position, however, is at odds with the views of many conservative anti abortion activists, who believe that any work on stem cells derived from human embryos is wrong, because it destroys the embryos in the process. Some say Romney’s views make him unacceptable to many voters and will complicate his attempt to win the 2008 GOP nomination by appealing to the party’s conservative flank
Romney is certainly not my favorite candidate, not by a long shot. Regardless, his candidacy (and McCain’s and others’) provide mounting evidence that despite the outcomes of the mid-terms, despite the defection of moderate voters en masse, the GOP continues to perceive the grasp of the fundamentalists as an embrace rather than a stranglehold.
(Continued at Central Sanity.)