Some retreats will clearly be made, but be careful what you wish for GOP...
Would you vote Democrat if the GOP gives up on opposing gay marriage?
No. I expect that much to happen at this point, although it matters some on how they go about doing it, obviously. If the GOP gives up on abortion, though I may vote for Democrats, at least more than I do now. I don't care enough about gay marriage enough to freak out about that one. The GOP needs at least some set of issues they retain a more socially conservative position on to keep me from going rouge. For instance, opposing legalized marijuana and the HHS mandate would be a nice bone to throw me. They need to support religious exemptions to pretty much anything newly imposed by the government, etc. But if they throw the socon wing totally under the bus... Why should I vote for them?
Some retreats will clearly be made, but be careful what you wish for GOP...
1) That is pretty much already the standard now.
2) What are Ohio Republicans going to do? Vote Democrat because the GOP went liberal on social issues?
This wasn't a thread for Ohio Republicans in general, so much as from me specifically. (I am an Ohio resident even though I'm in Wisconsin for college).
Seems to me like you are simply using this to stop the GOP from moving forward on social issues for your own interests (looking at your scores on the matrix).
Of course. Social issues are the reason I vote for Republicans more often than not. I'm not wedded to any party's fiscal platform, and in fact, I probably stand to benefit financially from the Democrats winning. I'm not a fiscal leftist, but there is a particular segment of the Republican Party with fiscal views I am very much against, such as auditing the Fed or implementing a flat tax. I also am vaguely pro-union. It isn't altogether out of the question that I'd vote for the Democrats over Gary Johnson or someone of his ilk (though Ron Paul may have managed to retain me). I've voted for Democrats before whenever I felt they were a better candidate or represented my views better than the Republican. If I'm content with neither, there may well be a time when I vote for neither. I tend not to like the idea of voting for third party candidates or protest votes, but again, I also don't like being thrown under the proverbial bus.
Whatever changes are made to the Republican Party need to be more carefully thought out than simply dumping one group in favor of another. There has to be some give-and-take from many ideological directions. We're going to have to be less dogmatic on a lot of things, including some I care about. I understand that much.
