Frank Cannon is president of the American Principles Project and a respected conservative political strategist with over 30 years of experience.
The policy differences that have appeared in, say, North Carolina between what Governor McCrory is doing on transgender bathrooms in the state and the Chamber of Commerce . . . that phenomenon of debating this on the policy side that existed in Georgia and in other states, where the Chamber of Commerce was pushing against the grassroots social issue movement is now moving directly into the primaries in down-ballot races.
In South Carolina, a woman who was the key sponsor in the state legislature for the 20-week [abortion ban] was defeated by a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored candidate who had just recently left his wife for another man. So this tension between the definition of the Party as being one that should dismiss social issues and the grassroots commitment to social issues is just one of the prongs on which this argument is taking place. But I think the more interesting point as it goes beyond social issues to core economic issues: Who do the policies of the Republican Party in terms of economics benefit, and are they benefiting the middle class voters you need to win national elections? And I think that’s the key question going forward.
