Unsouthern Republicans lead the race

Noemie Emery:

Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the base of his party; the former governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, son of a Michigan governor, a Mormon who looks, sounds, and comes across as a city boy; and the former mayor of New York, the Big Apple itself, ethnic and Catholic, pro-choice and pro-gun control, married three times, and a man who--Neil Simon, where are you?--moved in with a gay friend and his partner when he was thrown out of Gracie Mansion by his estranged and enraged second wife.

None hails from the South, none looks or sounds country, none is conspicuous for traditional piety, and none is linked closely to social conservatives. At the same time, none is exactly at odds with social conservatives either. None is a moderate, in the sense of being a centrist on anything or wary of conservatives; rather, each is a strong conservative on many key issues, while having a dissident streak on a few. Each has a way of presenting conservative views that centrists don't find threatening, and projecting fairly traditional values in a language that secular voters don't fear. In a country that has been ferociously split into two near-equal camps of voters for at least the past decade, this is no small accomplishment, as it suggests the potential to cross cultural barriers, and therefore extend one's own reach. If one of these men wins, it may mark a return to broader, national parties. And the iconic map of the recent elections, with the blue states draped like a shawl over the broad, red shoulders of Middle America, may give way to more subtle designs.

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There is much more.

I think that too much attention has been put on the social issues and the South. The social issues are probably more important to Republican turn out in non southern states which have a heavy Catholic population. In the South the main issue has always been national security, and not race or abortion. All three of the leading Republican candidates are acceptable on national security issues. It is the southerns who have volunteered in high numbers to fight our wars and they do not trust any of the Democrat candidates to lead that fight. They see them instead as wanting to lead a retreat.