Are Republicans stuck in a double bind?

John Boehner
Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks to reporters following a meeting with President Barack Obama on March 1, 2013 in Washington, DC.
JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

In the latest issue of The Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti, editor-in-chief of The Washington Free Beacon, argues that if Republicans want to make a comeback, they have to stop trying to have it all:

In the months since the November election, a bipartisan chorus, including many conservative intellectuals, has urged GOP officials to adopt new domestic policies to attract support from groups that have been trending Democratic. At the same time, though, the chorus expects the GOP to maintain its base of support from the coalition that won 51 percent of the House popular vote in 2010 and 48 percent in 2012.

Here's the problem. The domestic proposals that have the greatest chance of making the Republican party attractive to the "coalition of the ascendant"​--​immigrants, members of the millennial generation, single white women​--​involve far more government intervention in the economy than the GOP coalition​--​married white people, Wall Street, the Tea Party​--​will allow. And we haven't even mentioned changing the GOP approach to social issues, which would drive the Republican base of religious conservatives out of the party.

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