Not bright red

Primary voters might be paying close attention to social issues, but the party as a whole is not. The Republican Party bleeds purple, not bright red.

Who’s in control? Some might say the rise of the social right behind the candidate Rick Santorum is evidence of the strength and power of the social (or Christian) right within the grand old Republican Party. There may be some truth to this theory, but, for the most part, I disagree. Rick Santorum’s recent popularity with the far right is largely in response to the Catholic mandate nonsense that conveniently whipped up the uber social right wing of the GOP.

A few things. We know that primary voters — regardless of party — are not typically reflective of the larger party. They just aren’t. Voter turnout is typically low in primaries, so you don’t get a true sampling of the party.

Compound low voter turnout with the fact that primary voters are, frankly, the more extreme and politically motivated wing of both the Democrat and Republican parties, and there you have a skewed picture of the party.

In the case of the 2012 Republican primary contests in February, it was the timing of the Catholic mandate mess, low turnout and the nature of the primary voter that drove the social right out to vote for Rick Santorum.

Take the Feb. 7 trifecta, for example — the day of the Colorado Caucus and the Minnesota and Missouri primaries. In a surprise and unexpected showing, Rick Santorum won the Colorado caucus. And then he went on to win the Missouri and Minnesota primaries. Some (namely the media) have been trying to suggest that this means that the social right is firmly in the driver’s seat.

Again, to this, I’d say — put the brakes on, friends.

To begin, turnout for all three nominating contests was lower than that of 2008. From USA Today:

“In Colorado, where Romney campaigned heavily, turnout was down about 7% from 2008, according to data compiled by MSNBC’s First Read. In Minnesota, turnout was down by 24%. And in Missouri, which was a “beauty contest” primary with no impact on delegate allocation, voting was down 57%.”

To look at primary participation in those three states in a different light, consider this: Less than 2 percent of registered voters turned out in Colorado and Minnesota, while MIssouri was slightly better with 7 percent.

The fact that Santorum took these states doesn’t say a whole lot — 2 percent and 7 percent are not reflective of the Republican Party. What about the other 93-98 percent in those states?

What we do know, at the moment, is that Mitt Romney is leading the pack with 568 of the delegate count thus far. He has doubled Santorum’s 273. Further, according to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog, Governor Romney is expected to do very well in the Wisconsin and Maryland primaries today.

Let’s not lose sight of this.

Divided We Stand…

Back to the original question of just how influential the social-right wing of the party actually is within the Republican party. Answer: they are influential in the primary process to an extent, but hardly all powerful.

Let’s depart from the primary discussion for a moment and look at a Rasmussen Poll from October 2011, which shows that only 27 percent of U.S. voters classify themselves as both fiscally conservative and socially conservative.

What this means is this… The media and pundits are wrong in their attempt to package and sell the public on the idea that cookie-cutter conservatives — fiscal conservatives, who are also wedded to social right ideals — are taking over the Republican party.

As the poll points out, this is absolutely not true. Over 70 percent of U.S. voters, apparently, only want to be defined as a fiscal conservative or a social conservative.

Bottom line: We remain a party divided. And, let me be clear, conservatism should not be confused with social extremism.

The economy matters

In this election cycle, the economy is what matters. The social right platform is not the priority of the party.

According to a Gallup Poll released Monday:

• 91 percent of Republicans say unemployment is extremely important/very important.
• 82 percent say the national debt is extremely important/very important.
• 86 percent say the price of gas is extremely important/very important.
• But only 40 percent say that social issues, along the lines of government policies concerning birth control, are extremely important/very important.

Primary voters might be paying close attention to social issues, but the party as a whole is not.

The Republican Party bleeds purple, not bright red.

Sarah Lenti is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s The Savvy. E-mail her at sarah@nmpolitics.net. For disclosure, Lenti previously worked on Mitt Romney’s policy book, as a researcher, in 2008 and 2009.