Social Conservative, Heal Thyself!

Over at National Review's The Corner, Maggie Gallagher has posted a very good assessment on why social conservatives tend to be bad at politics. Her blog inspired American Spectator's Jim Antle to respond with his own post, which hits the nail on the head.

In my experience, social conservative organizations are less professional and polished than other organizations even within the conservative movement. They tend to lack effective spokesmen. And many of their spokesmen, I have found, are unable to call a friendly reporter back by the time of his deadline. As a social conservative myself, it doesn't surprise me that such organizations are so often and easily outmaneuvered by gay-rights groups and other social liberals.

I thought a third opinion was in order, so I contacted Gary Marx, a veteran social conservative organizer, to get his take on the subject.

Marx liked the posts today, and felt the timing was appropriate, telling me:

In this time table when there is soul searching, we need to have honest self-critique, and that means social conservative organizations need to step their game up and take an unpolished ministry attitude and give that a back seat toward a professional, sophisticated approach to their jobs.

Marx believes that the problem has to do with how the many social conservative leaders have failed to hold their employees to high enough standards:

Too many organizations think that because everyone on staff loves the Lord, that they aren't as strict at pushing to meet the highest standards of professionalism.

... A church ministry mentality is that because I love the Lord -- and you love the lord -- I won't be as hard on you.

According to Marx, this is a serious problem that has had a negative impact on the influence of social conservatives. He tells me:

I think it's broadly kept social conservative organizations from becoming permanent, sophisticated, organizations on par with some of their economic and national security brethren.

It is interesting to see that social conservatives are admitting that their own behavior -- not just "establishment" Republican bias -- has contributed to their problems.