Most Americans Care More about Jobs than Wedge Issues; Reviewing the GOP Debate
WHITFIELD: All right. Welcome back to this special hour of the "CNN Newsroom." We're focusing on politics allowing you to hear from the 2012 presidential contenders. The candidates are talking about a variety of issues this weekend in New Hampshire, two days before the state's first in the nation primary. During a debate last night on ABC, the candidates weighed on the religious institution's right to oppose gay marriage.</s>GINGRICH: I just want to raise the point about the news media bias. You don't hear the opposite question asked, should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won't accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won't give into secular bigotry. Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminate against by the Obama administration in key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration? The bigotry question goes both ways and there is a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concern on the other side and none of it is covered by</s>PERRY: I am for a constitutional amendment that says marriage is between a man and a woman at the federal level. But this administration's war on religion is what bothers me greatly. When we see an administration that will not defend the Defense of Marriage Act, that gives their Justice Department clear instructions to go take the ministerial exception away from our churches where that's never happened before, when we see this administration not giving money to Catholic charities for sexually trafficked individuals because they don't agree with the Catholic Church on abortion, that is a war against religion and it is going to stop under a Perry administration.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Joining us now from St. Louis, Missouri, Danielle Belton, editor and writer of the blog, "The Black Snob" and from Washington, Crystal Wright, the editor of the blog, conservativeblackchick.com. Good to see you, ladies.</s>DANIELLE BELTON, EDITOR "THE BLACK SNOB": Nice to be with you.</s>CRYSTAL WRIGHT, EDITOR, CONSERVATIVEBLACKCHICK.COM: Thanks for having me.</s>WHITFIELD: OK. So we're hearing the GOP candidates tout their social conservative credentials. So how will the eventual nominee try to transition one's self to the general election and win over the more moderate Republicans in the independence in particular. Crystal, you first.</s>WRIGHT: Well, you know, I got to say that ABC debate last night was kind of like that Spanish inquisition of the presidential candidates on their gay rights positions, on abortion and contraception. And I think Newt Gingrich nailed it when he said, look, this isn't about; this is an assault on Christian values. But at the end of the day, whoever our nominee is, you know Romney is playing it safe because he knows he has to appeal to those all important independent voters. Americans, whether they be conservative or Democrat or liberal, Tea Party, they don't care about these social issues, these wedge issues. You know what they want? They want jobs. This is why governor in Virginia, we saw Governor McDonnell win because he talked about the economy. This is why Governor Chris Christie won New Jersey, because he talked about the economy. I think it was just really inflammatory all the questions that, you know, George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer spent asking these candidates about social issues and people's bedrooms. They were never asked this of Obama and Hillary in 2008. We didn't see any of that. At the same time, I think candidates do need to appeal -- put those on the sidelines. They don't even need to address the moderators with this crazy talk about people's bedrooms.</s>WHITFIELD: So you wonder, Danielle, you know so some of these candidates are appealing to a certain electorate when they do say that they are the social conservative. However, we all know that they're also all vying for that independent voter, the moderate voter. So how might you see the strategy changing for these candidates? Is it based on which state in which that primary or caucus is unfolding?</s>DANIELLE BELTON, BLOGGER, THE BLACK SNOB: Well, they're going to have to make adjustments. The reason why you have these issues come up in a debate or even when you have moderators bring them up is because in a lot of cases they are talking about the government being involved with what goes on in people's bedrooms and what goes on in their personal lives. And so they're trying to appeal to a base that wants the defense of marriage act, that wants to talk about whether gay people can get married or not, that wants to talk about whether or not a woman can get an abortion under what way she can do that. So the problem is when you go to a broader audience and you are trying to appeal to a broader base, it gets a little hinkey.</s>WHITFIELD: Is this issue -- then this conversation perhaps didn't work, the social conservative issues for us didn't work because it was New Hampshire. But perhaps it might work in a state like South Carolina, which is where Rick Santorum is today.</s>WRIGHT: Most definitely. Most definitely.</s>BELTON: And I think --</s>WHITFIELD: Go ahead, Danielle first.</s>BELTON: That's OK.</s>WRIGHT: Sorry.</s>BELTON: As you go to different states like South Carolina, you go down south, you go to Florida, you go to Texas, you're going to want to appeal to these certain social issues because you have a lot of Republican voters who do care very deeply about it, who are going to make the decision who to vote for about it. They all pretty much agreed with each other on these issues, they tried to one up each other on who was going to stand strong in the defense of marriage.</s>WHITFIELD: OK, Crystal.</s>WRIGHT: I think that's the point. What I'm saying is that whether it be Romney, and Romney did a good job in not trying to one up everybody else on traditional marriage, and the Republicans need to talk about traditional marriage and then move on and talk about the economy and jobs. I mean I think trying to give the American people a litmus test on whether, you know, their gay rights positions is really ridiculous like today when NBC asked -- we had the debate today and we saw Santorum ask what he would do if he had a gay son. It is like he should just say, you know what, and we're here to talk about the economy and jobs, that's what the American people care about. I think to Danielle's point, they need to pivot on what is really important. Not shy away from their stances, but say, where we are today is about the economy and jobs and Barack Obama is --</s>WHITFIELD: So here we are focusing on the strategy of the Republican contenders. Yet the White House is watching very closely. And might the White House be trying to decide what is the strategy going forward depending on who that Republican nominee will be? Will it be a more moderate conservative? Will it be a social conservative and so how is that dictating in your view, you know, Danielle, the White House strategy?</s>BELTON: I believe the White House wants to see the Republican race go even further and further to the right. So they can paint whoever the eventual nominee is as an extremist. That's the most natural path to take, is to take what happens in these debates, to take what happens on the stump as the candidates hammer out over who should be able to win the conservative base and to appeal to the more issue -- the social issue conservatives. And the Obama administration will try to hang them on it, try to paint them as a --</s>WHITFIELD: OK. Crystal, ten seconds on that.</s>WRIGHT: Yes, you know, the Obama administration is going to paint any Republican -- whoever the Republican nominee is as an extremist because President Obama has nothing to run on. And the fact is Romney looks more and more like he's tightening this up. If he wins New Hampshire and he is ahead in South Carolina, he's not running on an extremist agenda, Romney is running on a safe agenda, he is appealing to independents and moderates, and at the end of the day, Barack Obama has zero record to run on. We have 44 million people on food stamps, 13 million unemployed, and, you know, the president said unemployment, if just give me $800 billion and I promise unemployment won't go above 8 percent, well, we all know what that is. Barack Obama should be worried about running on a record which he doesn't have.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Ladies, thank you so much. Crystal Wright, Danielle Belton, appreciate it. Just days before the nation's first primary election, the GOP race does heat up. Watch the New Hampshire Republican Debate, a replay of last night's debate on CNN tonight 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. All right. There is a huge conservative voting population in South Carolina, which is where most of the candidates will be midweek. Already a couple are there. We'll talk to our Peter Hamby about how the contenders stack up there in just a few minutes. Plus, the American economy back on track? Many of you are rethinking retirement and the American dream.