I think Jerry has spent too much time in California, he really should get to the South and Midwest more.

Here in Kansas, there are TONS of "social conservatives" who care deeply about imposing their values on everyone. Indeed, to take Pournelle's example of "not caring what gets sold in the back of the video store 20 miles away", there's quite an active effort among conservatives here to get the state to dust off obsenity statues and prosecute adult store owners. Neighboring Missouri passed a 25% tax and ID check law (if you walked into a store to buy a dirty book, the owner would have to make and keep a copy of your drivers license) that their courts threw out, several southern states have outlawed sales of dildoes, and of course the efforts to get hotel chains to stop making PPV porn available. Silly as this list may sound those are BIG issues in Kansas.

And of course, the elephant is abortion. I can't tell you how many people I run into -- and these are generally college educated people in the KC suburbs, not even the rural types -- who say that their first, second, and third voting issue is who is the strongest pro-life candidate. Or merely that they way they decide who to vote for is choosing whomever is the best Christian, policy stances aren't really interesting. You don't hear so much talk about guns and taxes, it really is the God angle.

Of course, the Kansas GOP took some huge hits this week precisely because they pushed so far on the religious right agenda that they lost many of hte pro-business suburban moderates. In that sense Pournelle is right. But the view that "social conservative" really means a leave-me-alone traditionalist may work in the West and northern New England, but it's a whole different game here.