A Move to Satisfy Conservative Base

[kskiska]

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, February 25, 2004; Page A01

With President Bush's embrace yesterday of a marriage amendment, the compassionate conservative of 2000 has shown he is willing, if necessary, to rekindle the culture wars in 2004.

Bush's plan was to run for a second term on the basis of his performance as a war leader and as a tax cutter, eschewing divisive social issues as he did in 2000 while campaigning as "a uniter, not a divider." But in the end, Republican strategists said, Bush had no choice but to change course and add a highly charged cultural issue to the center of the campaign.

Bush's conservative base of support, despite three years of cultivation, had grown restless over the budget deficit, government spending and his plan to liberalize immigration. At the same time, he was on the defensive over the economy and the Iraq war, and facing an uncharacteristically unified Democratic party.

So when gay marriages advanced in Massachusetts and San Francisco, Bush felt a need to respond to the cries of social conservatives -- even if it meant losing some swing voters he needs in November.

"Ultimately, I don't think he had any choice," said Gary Bauer, a religious conservative who challenged Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000. "The president has never really shown an enthusiasm about the wars over the culture." Bauer added: "It would've been inconceivable that a president so associated with traditional values would have sat idly by while marriage was being redefined. He had to act."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3341-2004Feb24.html

[David Dunham]

1. Watch how the press and most sensible pundits criticize Bush for this

[cam75219]

2. Thinking about it.......

I think It's a ploy. He can say he wants an amendment to satisfy the fundies, and he does it now to get it out there early. Congress will do nothing, I think Delay and Dreyer are doing bush's bidding by saying that they are against it. Nobody thinks that an amendment would pass congress much less the state ratification. I'm not sure what their up to, but Delay and Dreyer make me suspicious.

[Voltaire99]

3. Rekindle? When were they put out?

The culture wars are essentially all that animates social debate in the US: the choice between living in a modern, secular state or in a theocracy molded from the dead leaves of puritanism and the ashes of the Cold War.

9/11 was supposed to win the culture wars for the right once and for all. "Everything's changed," they cried (joined by a lot of dull-witted liberals and moderates who chimed right in). And so we got the elaboration of desires that were coursing through the right for decades: the rise of the security state, and the new crusade against the Muslim hordes. But war and worry aren't paying off in the polls. Iraq's a bust, there aren't many terrorists to worry about, and the public is tired of Bush and Ridge crying wolf. What's more, culture wars don't create jobs or lift stocks.

Hence the flap over gay marriage. How pathetic is it to pin your hopes for reelection on trying to extinguish human happiness?

[Journeyman]

4. Thank you, Voltaire. . .

once again I've gleaned a gem from the work of a Voltaire:

"How pathetic is it to pin your hopes for reelection on trying to extinguish human happiness?"

I'm going to share that with many, many people.

[priller]

5. When you can't run on your record

then you turn to the culture wars. (BTW, didn't Dean warn us about this?) No matter how much Bush and the Pukes talk about his superb record, the truth is they know it sucks, so they're going to push gay marriage and use "liberal" as a dirty word the whole campaign long.

OTOH, in a sense it's nice to see the Bushies so worried, that he has to start the REAL campaign (negative, attacks, culture wars, etc) so early.