The last election proved your last point. As for me, I am a social conservative and with somewhat moderate fiscal leanings. You know the terminology is giving way when you have to define your own ‘label’! Anyways, as always thanks for a good discussion!:-)

I am against late term abortions. During a story I did for ABC, I got to see a 12 week old aborted fetus. It looked like a mini-baby. I have never been faced with the prospect of having an abortion. I don’t believe I could do it. But I will defend the right of every woman to make that decision for herself. Further, I am spending more and more time working with community organizations and working to create positive educational options for underserved youth. And I and slowly getting into working with kids in our penal system. Most of them have been in state care at some point. I say to anyone who opposes abortion, work to change America’s priorities in terms of how she takes care of children who have no one to take care of them. When the state of those services improves dramatically, then you will find many moderate allies. Still, with all I have said here, I don’t expect you to understand my stance on abortion. That’s okay.

I was disappointed by the “above my pay grade” comment too. My husband thought it was exactly right. But what social conservatives may be missing is that many fiscal conservatives are social moderates. Meghan McCain is gaining traction among the Conservatives I know personally.

I thought I’d written it on AAR. gettin’ old.

As for Bush/Cheney’s consolidation of executive power – I agree with you. Obama is not slowing that down or stopping it. He is actually building on it and accelerating. What I heard was common at the protests were signs of Bush and Obama side by side with the caption “Dumb and Dumber”.

I will have to listen to the crowd speeches again. I heard one lady say some things that were not right. But again, I am not especially surprised by that nor am I going to jump to the conclusion that they represent tea parties that were ‘too numerous to list’ around the country. You know my position, and we have interacted enough I think for you to know it isn’t about my suffering from extreme color arousal disorder.

On Sanger, I thought you would have written on that topic as well – just couldn’t find it in the search. I’ll look harder.

Without debating abortion here – you cannot ignore that as an incendiary issue for conservatives in this country. The truth is – little has actually changed legally with regard to that in this country whether an R or a D has been in the Oval Office. Obama who said he wanted to bring people together has taken such an extreme left stance that you could not expect a different reaction from many people. Not racism, deep concern for the sanctity of life – yours truly being one of the concerned, now labeled an ‘extremist’.

Carmen I don’t understand your stance on abortion but I can’t believe that you agree that leaving babies targeted for abortion but that are born alive should be left on a table to die alone in a hospital. Obama not only does, he defended the practice. That I suspect is why he believes it is above his paygrade to say when a baby gains human rights. That is the incendiary issue for many, add the leftist political ideology and the reaction is very, very predictable. But racism isn’t the fuel.

(If it was in this thread, sorry I missed it . . . )