Ramesh Ponnuru makes a great point when comparing the electoral fates of Christie and Cuccinelli: it's not social conservatism per se that will kill you in current political/cultural environment - it's perception that you are obsessed with social conservative values, a perception which telegraphs to voters that you're an unyielding extremist, that's what will get you in trouble and cost you the trust of independents and moderates and minorities and women and make you the hapless punchline of the media. Funny thing is, understanding this should come naturally to Republicans since a distrust of extremes and a belief in the moderating effects of democracy against those extremes is fundamentally a conservative principle and indicative of a truly conservative view of how the world works - which is why so called 'true conservatives' who hate Christie for his 'moderation' are in reality cannibalizing true conservatism in order to feed their righteous anger. I get the anger - the enervating brand of liberalism espoused by Obama and his maenads is dangerous, debilitating stuff - but if we've gotten to the point where the extremes of anger and outrage are the only viable responses and effective countermeasures left to conservatives then, sorry, the game is already over, liberals will have us exactly where they want us as far as narrative spinning goes and the media enabled welfare state will have won - and if that's the case, might as well move on to a serious discussion of our plan B.
