The Republican presidential race has been all about the economy. With sluggish economic growth and millions of Americans still out of work, the candidates for the nomination have been trying to portray themselves as the best person to fix it.
But social issues – which have energised Republican politics for decades – returned dramatically to the fore during the past week, with controversies involving contraception and abortion, religious freedom and same-sex marriage filling the airwaves.
“For a substantial portion of the Republican base, this is the central issue,” says Bill Galston, a respected political analyst at the Brookings Institution. “They are concerned about what they see as the cultural decay of America.”
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