BEEF, BEER, BLACK COFFEE, BACK HAIR AND 6-BUCK HAIRCUTS?

What (men) do women want? (Suzanne Fields, August 25, 2003, Townhall.com)

Do conservative women look for different qualities of masculinity in men than liberal women do? Is sex appeal not so much in the eye, but in a point of view? [...]

The American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank, devotes the current issue of the American Enterprise magazine to the sexual differences between Democrats and Republicans, lauding the Bush administration in a cover story: "Real Men, They're Back"

Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of National Review, recalls the formulation of the Democrats as the "mommy party" and the Republicans as the "daddy party" and declares that men like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have made it "daddy party time" in the nation's capital.

This formulation echoes George Lakoff, professor of cognitive sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, who argues that modern conservatives speak to people in terms of "the strict father morality," and liberals act like the "nurturant parent."

In his configuration, "conservatives have left liberals in the dust" because their arguments frame the issues in a more compelling way. The father teaches right and wrong, self-discipline and self-reliance while preserving the safety net of "compassionate conservatism."

This last is how George W. Bush may be able to make the GOP the majority party again. Being the disciplinarian is all well and good, but folks want to know they're going to be taken care of too. A system of privatized/individualized/voucherized socal services would combine self-discipline, self-reliance, and compassion in a new way. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2003 11:36 AM