Testing The Rube Vote

1:06 am EST June 5th, 2006 | Politics | 6 Comments

Personally I don’t have any faith in the religious hard right. Bigoted, close-minded throwbacks to the ancient days they champion an agenda that is wrong on every issue and has no chance of being accepted into the mainstream. Yet, they form the backbone of the conservative movement and are lured to the polls again and again by being convinced by the GOP’s snake-oil salesman that they need just one more vote to banish the gays to Hades, just one more vote and the “unborn” will be saved, just one more vote and earth will be saved from Armageddon (which for these folks is any day now -literally). That the Republicans only remember these issues when election day rolls around seems to never penetrate the skulls of these knuckle-draggers.

Writing in Reason, David Weigel says it won’t work this time

There’s a hitch. Like the wife bitterly accepting the huge “I’m sorry” bouquet from the philanderer, social conservatives aren’t falling for the sudden display of charm. The new push for the amendment is too cute by half, rolled out after obvious displays of hand-wringing meant to convince moderates that, no, the Republican leadership didn’t really hate gays. First Lady Laura Bush came out against the amendment, a nice gesture that means absolutely nothing policy-wise. FRC president Tony Perkins spent more than a year grousing about Bush’s lack of interest in the amendment, noting last week to The New York Times that “the day after [the 2004 election], the president began a crusade to reform Social Security and it went nowhere.” Social conservatives are smart, and they’ve noticed that the marriage vote only comes up a few months before the GOP hits the polls, a move that signals less-than-Joan of Arc-like commitment to their beliefs. “It’s unfortunate that it’s coming up just in election years,” says the FRC’s McClusky.

So they say, but I expect a late October onslaught of the Republicans screaming that without the religious right’s votes Nancy Pelosi herself will abort all their babies… and the rube vote will be on again.

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6 Responses to “Testing The Rube Vote”

  1. Frank_D says:
    June 5, 2006 at 6:06 am

    Oliver, you have, as usual, been looking in the wrong place. That’s why you, like other Democratics, don’t know what what Republicans are thinking. Libertarians may be our eccentric uncles, but at least they’re in the family:

    It shouldn’t be hard for Republicans to see why they’re in danger of losing their majority. Voter anger over immigration and spending [emphasis added] has manifested itself in citizen groups patrolling the border, challenging them in primaries, and bussing reporters to the sites of shameful pork-barrel projects.

    Immigration and spending are issues where Democratics can’t say anything about Republicans.

  2. White Whale says:
    June 5, 2006 at 10:06 am

    Hopefully they decide to stay home. Republicans really pay lip service to these kooks. This “Gay Marriage Amendment” that Bush wants (for the second time since he flip-flopped on the issue) will NEVER pass but they are putting it out there anyway. Either Republicans are petrified of losing seats and the presidency or they believe the Religious Right are a collective of idiotic voters that will fall for any red meat you throw thier way. I think that people are not to keen on writing DISCRIMINATION into the Constitution. Let the States handle the issue. This is the biggest waste of time issue out in the American Public.

  3. Oliver Willis says:
    June 5, 2006 at 10:06 am

    You mean even though Democrats spent less than the GOP and that our position on immigration is in the mainstream (we’re helped because we don’t have to appeal to the nativist voters)?

  4. garth says:
    June 5, 2006 at 12:06 pm

    i object to the article’s assertion that these people are “smart”.

    and also, people seem to somehow forget that it’s Bush who’s run up more debt and greater deficits than anyone before. pretty stupid if you ask me. this is the guy who never once vetoed a spending bill. this is the party of bribes and corruption, and they could care less about what ruinous state they leave OUR government in. Their only concern in power and money.

    so if lying to the rubes perpetuates those two key things, who cares?

  5. Oliver Willis says:
    June 5, 2006 at 2:06 pm

    He’s never vetoed a bill, spending or otherwise.

  6. Salmo says:
    June 6, 2006 at 10:06 am

    So, the task to counter this is two-fold: start now with the framework – Republicans are the modern pharasees, and define the terms of the discussion in late September – the chicken littles are coming for you again. One can only say, “there you go again” if the groundwork has been properly laid.