Don't trust me - I've got an agenda

This week there has been a lot of talk about "reforming" the GOP. The "social values" "traditionalists" insist that we lost because we strayed from our moral underpinnings. The secular libertarians "reformists" quote statistics from the exit polls to prove their point.

My own take is that we would have lost even if we'd run Jesus against Obama so what's the point in Monday morning quarter-backing? But I'll play along.

Count me in with the "reformist" secular libertarians but don't trust me because I do have an agenda. I'm a classical liberal and would like to see the GOP become less holier-than-thou about certain "social values" so of course I love it when the statistics back me up.

From The GOP's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters:

Republicans have lost an enormous amount of support among upscale voters, basically just breaking even among those with household incomes above $50,000 a year, a traditional GOP stronghold. Similarly, McCain's losing to Obama among college graduates and voters who have attended some college underscores how much the GOP franchise is in trouble. My hunch is that the Republican Party's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues -- most notably, fights over embryonic-stem-cell research and Terri Schiavo -- cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.

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Those who write off the 2008 election by saying that Republican candidates weren't conservative enough are in denial. They are political ostriches, refusing to acknowledge that the country and the electorate are changing and that old recipes don't work any more.

One big problem: I've got a hunch that my "perfect" big tent secular libertarian GOP would alienate the "social values" Republicans (namely the religious right) and they will get fed up with the GOP and leave. But the fact is that the GOP needs the religious right or we will never win.

Actually we need everyone who is opposed to the big government socialist agenda of the Democrats - evangelicals, libertarians and classical liberals like me. So maybe I'm not really a "reformist" but a traditionalist who wants to see the GOP be the same old mess of ornery contradictory individuals that it's always been not some imitation of the Democratic Party all marching in lock-step chanting politically correct collectivist socialist slogans.