Take heart and LOL! The ultra-conservative movement has already been...

[jswordy]

...sold down the river and doesn't even know it yet!

Here we have this huge church-based organization that is positively ebullent about the election results and is riding high on a wave of press coverage telling it that it is now positioned to be the dominant power to shape the American landscape, perhaps for generations.

And yet, the hype just isn't true! Heheheheh... check the signs.

Bush is on the record already as having said in interviews:

1.) He does not believe the country is ready for, or would support, the overturning of Roe v. Wade; and,

2.) He will not press Congress to pass a law beginning the ratification process for an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution.

Hey! Those were the two largest pillars used to drive out the evangelical Christian vote for Bush, and already he has abandoned them. (Having served their purpose, don't you know!)

Meanwhile, a sizeable contingent of Republican congressfolks are already pressing the White House NOT to:

1.) Send any really right SC justices down the pipeline;

2.) Press the anti-gay amendment;

3.) Press hard on Social Security, as a no-win issue.

All those folks would like to get re-elected, and they know those three there could be trip-wires to that goal. Why should they sacrifice their own careers to support a lame-duck president?

So it appears highly likely that, bellicosity and news media predictions aside, the high point of the ultra conservative movement happened Nov. 3, and it will recede as we go forward, at least domestically.

Bush may have tacitly acknowledged that with his inauguration speech, which focused primarily on world matters. It remains to be seen how much stomach Congrss will have to back the so-called "Bush Doctrine" outside our borders, considering the stone-drop in American approval for the mess created by what has happened so far in pursuit of it.

In all this, I still see a one-off electoral effect for the Republicans that has passed. Bush got enough folks out just that one time, by using issues he knew he could throw away once back in office, and then he did just that after their usefulness to him was finished. That makes the prospects for a repeat of that November phenomenon in future voting remote.

So what we have is a situation in which -- as happens with a stock market bubble -- just as the news media are telling them they are a powerful force, ultra-conservatives probably have already peaked and are in decline on the national scene.

Take heart!

[Downtown Hound]

1. I don't know about Social Security

but I have never believed that the conservatives will outlaw abortion. It is the ultimate wedge issue, the conservatives need it or they won't be able to get the moron religious right to vote for them. It is that issue more than any other that rallies their base. If it were gone, the fire would be gone out of their movement.

[LoZoccolo]

2. Yeah, these wedge issues are the carrot they hold in front of people.

The religious right is not near as powerful as people think, it's just that this vote is the last few percentage points needed to win (and these dominionists that activists like to whip people into a frenzy about are a very very small portion of the relgious right). If the Republicans gave them what they want, they'd have nothing to string them along with.

[jean]

3. dangling a carrot in front of people and stringing them along...what a

great image that is!