Last week, I criticized my friend Robert Bluey’s reading of Michael Gerson’s position on immigration. My criticism was, on a broader level, that the conservative movement has very little capacity to understand conservatives who disagree with it on principal. More specifically, when deeply held beliefs begin to come into conflict with the increasingly interest group driven conservative movement agenda, the conservative movement struggles. This is, of course, where constituencies are gained and lost.
So what will happen with the environment? The Catholic Church is taking a strong position on global warming, H/T Andrew Sullivan:
The Pope is expected to use his first address to the United Nations to deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a "moral" cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.
Will this have any impact on the conservative movement? Will this have any impact on Catholic voters in the US? (In Rob’s case, almost certainly not. But he didn’t care what his church said about immigration either) Is this growing disconnect going to matter?
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eyeon08.com » CBS gets Republicans on the record on global warming · December 11, 2007 at 11:40 AM
[…] In the end, as I have said, I think that this is an issue that is more important as a credibility issue than a ballot issue. Very few people are going to vote on the specifics of plans on global warming. But people, including Republicans, are increasingly seeing this as an issue that candidates need to have a credible position on to be a credible candidate. Anecdotally, it seems clear to me that this is something that is important to a number of Evangelical and Catholic groups. […]
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