December 03 2008
Neerman in the News—Rod Dreher’s Column
Rod Dreher’s column explores the recently released survey of GOP voters around the State.
The Emerging GOP leans Republican but doesn’t like the party today. Emergents are younger, more secular, socially moderate, Internet-savvy – and more suburban. Dallas County GOP Chairman Jonathan Neerman runs into these people all the time.
“They considers themselves Republican, but they don’t like some of the rhetoric that they hear on illegal immigration, on social issues, on the environment,” he says. “I think Dallas is going to be the epicenter of the state party’s change.”
The question is not whether change will come, but when – and how traumatically. The old guard is not going down without a fight. In a recent Dallas Observer, Eagle Forum’s Cathie Adams lays into Mr. Neerman for reaching out to gays, pro-choicers and “environmental wackos.”
“Yeah, I am talking to them, and that’s OK,” Mr. Neerman tells me. “If we quit talking, we lose those people who are fiscal conservatives, pro-Second Amendment and pro-environment.”
A party that ends up only talking to itself is a party that cannot change. A party that cannot change lacks the means of its conservation. Texas Republicans have a decision to make. A demographic tide is rolling across what was once the reddest state. The troubled party can choose to roll with it – or watch their prospects drown in a deep blue sea.
Click Dreher Column for the full column