Ralph Reed and Ryan Sager are now debating. Though they disagree quite sharply on gay marriage (which is sucking up quite a bit of oxygen from the debate), there’s a lot more common ground than you might think. Sager started by saying he’d have to be “deranged” to actually argue that social conservatives aren’t critical to rebuilding the Republican majority, as suggested by the title of the debate (“Resolved: Religious Conservatives are Critical to Building a Republican Majority”). Instead, Sager argues that the religious right needs to get back to protecting their values by fighting government encroachment on the same. Reed more or less agrees, emphasizing the need for religious conservatives to embrace a big tent, quoting Reagan’s dictum that “an 80% friend is not a 20% enemy.” It seems that fusionism lives.
