Ramesh, I especially liked his suggestion that moderates “have lives” outside of politics, whereas conservatives evidently do not.

But more importantly, if moderation on social issues is such a great thing for Republicans, why were the moderates slaughtered in the 2006 election?

I only made the case for the House races. In the Senate, Republicans lost six seats, and again it would be hard to say that social conservatism was the main dividing issue in any of them, or that Democrats successfully used it to beat up on their opponents. Even Rick Santorum was defeated by someone claiming to be pro-life (whose record since indicates otherwise).

Linc Chafee was obviously no right-to-lifer. Everyone agrees that George Allen lost because of his big mouth. Conrad Burns was dogged by that and corruption allegations. Mike DeWine could have been hurt by his position on abortion, but there’s much stronger case that it had to do with multiple simultaneous Republican scandals in the state, the most unpopular governor in the country, the Iraq War, and perhaps his involvement the so-called “gang of 14.” Jim Talent’s race was probably the best pure-play on social conservatism, but even then he was actually outperformed by “No” on the cloning referendum in Missouri.