Maggie Gallagher is on the money in explaining why social conservatives are so ineffective politically. While I blame the Republican Party more than she does, in politics you have to make your own success — and too often social conservatives don’t. Their only leverage, as Gallagher says, is to threaten to withold their votes.
In my experience, social conservative organizations are less professional and polished than other organizations even within the conservative movement. They tend to lack effective spokesmen. And many of their spokesmen, I have found, are unable to call a friendly reporter back by the time of his deadline. As a social conservative myself, it doesn’t suprise me that such organizations are so often and easily outmaneuvered by gay-rights groups and other social liberals.
