Writing in the
New York Post, Ryan Sager explains why the Bush/Rove strategy
of genuflecting to the religious right may drive away the next
generation of voters. Of the GOP, he writes:
its leadership may well come to realize that gay marriage was the wrong territory on which to plant their flag.... The Republicans have put themselves on the wrong side of a generation gap. And it won't be easily papered over as today's young voters age into older voters -- who are more likely to show up at the polls.
When it's one of your first presidential elections -- as it is for me -- it's no trivial matter that voting Republican means a vote for a party catering to the worst prejudices about our brothers, sisters, friends from high school, college roommates, co-workers, bosses, drinking buddies and the like.
I'm not sure I can do it. And, if it weren't for the War on Terror, I know few for whom it would even be a question.
And for what purpose? As the Los Angeles Times reports:
For all the attention from the White House, some social conservative leaders are complaining that Bush and others in his administration were too measured in their support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage....
Some conservative activists also are protesting that their most prominent allies have not been given prime speaking spots at next month's Republican National Convention....
"It appears the president has extraordinary passion on his issue, but it doesn't seem that the passion is matched across his administration," said David Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable, an advocacy group for "traditional Judeo-Christian philosophies."
Note to K. Rove: Short of declaring a theocracy, there really is no way to win over the support of these extremists. But I'm sure you'll keep trying.
Family Values.
Also noted in the same
LA Times piece:
[Vice President] Cheney and his wife, Lynne, devoted much time on a recent bus tour through battleground states to talking about values and family. Speaking before partisan, conservative crowds, they introduced their 10-year-old granddaughter and celebrated the birth of their first grandson, children of their other daughter, Elizabeth. But they did not introduce Mary -- a full-time campaign staffer who accompanied them on the tour.
Mary, of course, being the out lesbian of the family.