Conservative renewal

I'm in David Frum's school which thinks that a less pro-life, more pro-environment GOP would have greater electoral chances. But I guess it's because I'm ideologically aligned with "upper middle-class professionals", as Douthat explains.

His electoral case for keeping a strong pro-life platform in the GOP is sobering and discouraging to those of us who think like Frum. Hmmm.

In watching this diavlog I've become more keenly aware of something banal: the most virulent anti-choicers who are 100% convinced that unicellular embryos == people...these folks are largely incapable of seeing through the Palin farce.

In other words, the nomination of a "proud" pro-life woman like Palin clouded other pro-lifer's minds to absolutely everything else that matters. This is obvious when you really think about it, but I wasn't fully cognizant until I listened to Douthat explain about conservative activists and the Human Life Ammendment and how it cannot practically be removed from the party's platform.

I am more convinced than ever that an uncompromising pro-life position is really eating away at the Republican party's electoral chances. The Dobsonites won't let them nominate a moderate, unifying (John McCain wasn't unifying) figure in the vein of Colin Powell, Condi Rice, or Kay Bailey Hutchison.

But Douthat throws cold water on the David Frum school of thinking. I don't know what to propose in response...at this rate, the Republican party is destined to be a 40% party, and that's not good for conservatism, but how can we possibly convince pro-lifers to work culturally and socially outside the legal system in e.g. promoting adoption alternatives, and not be so virulently anti-Roe? It seems impossible.