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Friday, February 20, 2004
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"CHRIST YOU KNOW IT AINT EASY
YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT CAN BE
THE WAY THING'S ARE GOING
THEY'RE GONNA CRUCIFY ME"
According to today's Washington Times, President George W. Bush has some serious, serious political trouble on the horizon. Fiscal conservatives have been pissed at the president for some time over his spending money like a drunken deviant in a Thai whorehouse. Between a massive farm bill, steel tarriffs, the largest entitlement program since 1965 (the preciption drug benefit for seniors), and monumental tax cuts that appear to be designed to destroy the American government faster than the United States destroyed the Iraqi one; There is now a seven trillion dollar deficit.
Deficits upset fiscal conservatives greatly. They're so.....friggin' responsible that way.
Now Bush has the social conservatives to worry about. The Jesus boys and girls are nearing, as one put it, "apoplexy" over the president's failure to hate homosexuals enough . This president should be very, very afraid of said fanatics as he remembers what they did to his father in 1992. Bush 41 was merely rumoured to be gay-and-abortion friendly and the Christian types annhilated him, first by supporting Patrick Buchannan's primary challenge and then by staying home in November. 41 figured that they'd have to support him during the general election for fear that Bill Clinton would be elected. George H. W. was wrong. The happy Christians were content to loathe Clinton. Firstly, the knew they would hate him up front and secondly, loathing the Clintons is fun.
One need only look at the 1994 congressional elections to learn just how effective God's right hands can be in organanizing and getting out their vote. They were instrumental in overturning a 40 year, solid Democratic house majority, which no one thought could ever happen. Jesus, they even took out a sitting Speaker of the House - Tom Foley - in his own district for the first time since the Civil War. It was impressive.
While people like me are upset by Bush's over-reaction to the San Francisco same-sex marriage media circus, the busboys at the Last Supper are furious by the president's under-reaction.
"I am just furious over what's going on in California and over what the president is not doing in California," a prominent evangelical leader confided. "He says he's 'troubled' - he should be outraged. If he's troubled, he should pick up the phone and call [California Republican Gov.] Arnold [Schwarzenegger] and tell him we want action against the rogue mayor who is breaking the law."
The stillborn looking, part-time Republican presidential candidate and full-time Christ fanatic, Gary Bauer is quoted as saying:
"I'm not blaming the president, but religious conservatives have been doing politics for 25 years and, on every front, are worse off on things they care about. The gay rights movement is more powerful, the culture is more decadent, the life of not one baby has been saved, porn is in the living room, and you can't watch the Super Bowl without your hand on the off switch."
These people get serious when they get pissed off. They'd stay home even if Osama bin Laden was the Democratic nominee just to spite Bush if he keeps it up. At least they'd be certain of the intensity of bin Laden's faith... and they're pretty sure that he'd be more pro-active on gays and abortion than Bush, too.
This may prove to be the fatal flaw behind the president's "compassionate conservatism." Both fiscal and social conservatives are concerned that the "compassion" has over-run the "conservative." Bush took this stance in 2000 to reach out to moderates as a means of demonstrating that he wasn't insane. Buchannan's "culture war" speech at the '92 campaign and some of Newt Gingrich's more inflammatory rhetoric had haunted the Republican party for a long time. Bush neutralized that. Once elected, he threw the right some bones, like the fath-based initative program and the stem cell research "ban." And 9/11 certainly didn't hurt.
But senior counsellor and Bush consigliere, Karl Rove has decided to run the White House in a "permanent campaign" mode that proved so successful for President Clinton. The government, reportedly at the direction of Rove, has implemented programs geographically and demographically - with an eye to the '04 race. The steel tarriffs were designed to win Pennsylvania. The farm subsidies are there to lock down the midwest and plains states. Percription drugs was signed to neutralize the Democrat's advantage with seniors, which comes in handy in Arizona and Florida. And finally, the proposed immigration reform is there to cut into the Hispanic vote-which Bush did very well with in Texas- and could sway states like New Mexico, Florida and New Jersey. But above all, the president wants to campaign for re-election as a moderate.
Unfortunately, this strategy has ignored the Republican's most important constituents; conservatives. W. forgot one very important lesson. That is that if moderates were meant to be successful in the modern Republican party, Colin Powell, and not he, would currently be President of the United States.
Bush is starting to make the right political noises to mollify the base. He's almost certain to get behind the ridiculously wrong headed Federal Marriage Ammendment in a big way. And Press Secretary Scott McClellan today announced that the president really, really wants to see Mel Gibson's Jesus movie.
Of course, if all else fails, Bush/Cheney '04 has so far raised $143.5 million. Maybe he can buy them all a place in heaven.
Or, in a worst case scenario, Bush can go with a new running mate......
(Bumper sticker ruthlessly stolen from georgew.bush.org
Failing that, the president better start praying that Ralph Nader opens another front in his ongoing war with the Democratic party on Sunday.
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