One sign I saw last night that some of these conservatives might actually be coming to their senses is when the question came up about "Contraception" (an issue that has basically been settled in the US for about 35 years now, btw) the audience booed pretty loudly. PraXis is 100% correct that if the GOP continues to pound on these social issues, they're handing the election to Obama.
Hard to say. My gut tells me you are correct, which is quite unnerving. However, my head tells me that, as in the past, the social issues are being discussed in such detail at this stage merely to try to differentiate the candidates, but once we have a Republican nominee, a lot of those issues will mostly fade into the background.
On the contraception issue, I actually loved Santorum's answer. Note that he did
not say he wanted the government to step in
at all. What he said was:
[paraphrase] The way we have looked at contraception in this country is creating lots of other problems that I believe are bad for the country. I think we need to talk about those issues and re-examine them. But I do not think it is the government's job to step in and make any changes.
I mean, really, what's wrong with that position? Although an issue may be "settled" in the minds of many, if there is a legitimate argument that there are problems, why not talk about them
and keep a government "hands off" approach at the same time?