“SoCon” (or “socon”) is a “social conservative.” “SoCon” has been cited in print since at least 1999 and has been a popular term in Canada. The United States usage of “SoCon” was popularized in late 2007 and in 2008, associated with the presidential election.
 
A person who is a SoCon is concerned with social issues (such as religion), but a SoCon can also be a fiscal conservative (“FisCon” or “fiscon”).
 
     
Google Groups: rec.arts.sf.written
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From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (J. Brad Hicks)
Date: 1999/01/10
Subject: Re: The Handmaids Tale-How far are we?
 
In my thinking, the modern Republican party is a coalition party made up of the following primary groupings of voters:
 
o Corporate Republicans (“What’s good for America is good for General Motors, and vice versa.”)
o The New World Order (which is itself a merger of what’s left of the old Anti-Communist League with the Eisenhower/Rockefeller “global policeman”
  Ivy League strategists)
o Social Conservatives (“America is and always was a Christian Nation.”)
o Libertarian Republicans (“Reduce the size of government.”)
(...)
But anyway, back when Goldwater ran for president, the SocCons were solidly Democrat, a legacy of the days when “family values” meant “white family values.” The strategic genius move of the Reagan campaign team was to realize that the SocCons who had aligned themselves with the Democrats because the blamed the Republican Party for Reconstruction, were now just as offended with the Democrats over the Voting Rights Act and desegregation.
 
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From: “Ron Wise”

Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 05:21:38 GMT
Local: Sun, Jun 24 2001 11:21 pm
Subject: Re: CAers have to work a lot to pay their taxes…
 
This is very true, one of the main problems is the social conservative in the party think Day isn’t a social conservative and the fiscal conservatives think he is a social conservative and not a fiscal conservative.  I think both groups are right which means there is little difference between the Alliance and the Tory party.  The media of course portrays Day as a SoCon but the SoCon’s don’t buy it so he doesn’t get any support from them and the fiscal’s do buy it so he doesn’t get any support from them.
 
Google Books
The pilgrimage of Stephen Harper
By Lloyd Mackey
Toronto [Ont.]: ECW Press
2005
Pg. 55:
In an August 25, 2002, interview with Joe Paraskevas, then of the Calgary Herald, Ray Speaker amplified on that broader social conservative (socon) definition. Such socons, he suggested, were fiscal conservatives who envisaged caring communities meeting their social needs with a minimal of state involvement.
       
The Economist
Seriously, about Mike Huckabee
Oct 22nd 2007, 17:47 by The Economist | AUSTIN
(...)
So why isn’t Mr Huckabee being taken seriously? Marc Ambinder theorises that the social-conservative establishment “fears Huckabee because Huckabee can empower social conservatives DIRECTLY, without the mediating influence, or dollars, of the SoCon establishment.”
 
National Review
DAVID FREDDOSO
November 19, 2007 7:00 A.M.
Scapegoating the So-Cons
They’re not what’s killing the GOP.
 
First Read from NBC News
Rudy, Iowa Christians, a tough sell
1 Dec 2007 6:22pm, EST
(...)
COMMENTS
D M
Mike Huckabee is the only viable candidate that is in touch with the SoCon base and has a record to prove it. Once the FisCons see past the negative attacks and find out that Huckabee’s fiscal record is, in fact, reasonably conservative - then Huckabee will shoot right on up to the nomination and the presidency.
#8 - Sat Dec 1, 2007 9:56 PM EST.
 
RedState
FisCon,SoCon,Soon We Have an Ex-Con?
Posted by dratpatrol
Saturday, June 20th 2009 at 12:55AM EDT
   
sisu
Really, this whole “socon vs fiscon” debate is artificial. There’s just “conservative”—and not.
(...)
That is, the evil divisive Social Conservatives (DeMint, Kyl, Sessions, Coburn) were big anti-earmark supporters. In fact, they aren’t “socons” as opposed to “fiscons”—they are just plain old across-the-board CONSERVATIVES. The so-called “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” moderates—the sort of folks who like to call themselves “fiscons” because they just can’t hang with those (ick!) social conservatives—weren’t. At All. The Snowes, Chafees, Specters, Grahams…are just not conservative in any way (as was made extremely clear by Chafee/Specter’s later actions).
 
It’s not about “socon vs fiscon”. It’s CONSERVATIVE vs not. (And contra Russ, above, the “socons” don’t usually blow up the bridge. It’s the Kathleen Parker/David Frum/Christie Todd Whitman/ it’s-all-the-fault-of-the “evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP” chorus—http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YTk3NTUxY2IxYmJkNjhhZjMyYzhhYzg1YjU1ZTkwZTY=—that continually tries (a) divide conservatives into these warring groups, and (b) send the ones they call “socons” to the back of the bus. Thanks for voting for our smart-set-approved candidates, you neanderthal troglodytes, now please go away…)
Posted by: BobInFL | September 21, 2010 at 11:34 AM