Republican Reelection Focus: Gays, Abortion, Terri Schiavo, Flags

Came across this AP article, feeling a little ill...

AP: Social Issues Top GOP Pre-Election Agenda

Protection of marriage amendment? Check. Anti-flag burning legislation? Check. New abortion limits? Check.

Between now and the November elections, Republicans are penciling in plans to take action on social issues important to religious conservatives, the foundation of the GOP base, as they defend their congressional majority...

Ohh, so all the same old shit that they prop up every election cycle to bamboozle their base? Okay. Sounds likes a fresh, exciting agenda that is sure to bring hope back to America.

The article continues-

In a year where an unpopular war in Iraq has helped drive President Bush's approval ratings below 40 percent, core conservatives whose turnout in November is vital to the party want assurances that they are not being taken for granted.

"It seems like for only six months, every two years — right around election time — that we're even noticed," said Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council.

Yes, Tom, because Lord knows the Republicans don't pay enough attention to religious fundamentalists like you.

The next line is key-

"Some of these better pass," he added. "You notice when it's just lip service being paid."

Do you? Ignoring the obvious insanity of the people who actually find these issues to be of great concern to the nation, I have this question for the right- Why do Republican voters keep getting fooled by this shit? I had hoped that eye-opening events like Katrina had changed all of this, but apparently not.

In his excellent book, "What's The Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won The Heart of America", Thomas Frank notes how the Republicans bring up these tired 'culture war' issues at every election and yet they never do anything about it... because if they did, they wouldn't have the issue to use a boogeyman in the next election cycle. And they keep doing it because the base falls for it every time.

Conservatives in the heartland- Don't like watching your jobs get shipped off to Asia or destroyed by the Walmart corporate culture? Want better access to affordable healthcare? Want cleaner air and drinking water? Want the government's focus to be on rebuilding this country rather than MidEast nation building? Apparently not, because many of you are too busy worrying about queers, flags, and abortion to notice that your elected officials are destroying the American way of life.

We need your help here people. Trust me, your votes are better spent elsewhere.

As Frank notes in his introduction-

In fact, backlash leaders systematically downplay the politics of economics. The movement's basic premise is that culture outweighs economics as a matter of public concern- that Values Matter Most, as one backlash title has it. On these grounds it rallies citizens who would once have been reliable partisans of the New Deal to the standard of conservatism. Old-fashioned values may count when conservatives appear on the stump, but once conservatives are in office the only old-fashioned situation they care to revive is an economic regimen of low wages and lax regulations. Over the last three decades they have smashed the welfare state, reduced the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, and generally facilitated the country's return to a nineteenth-century pattern of wealth distribution. Thus the primary contradiction of the backlash: it is a working-class movement that has done incalculable, historic harm to working-class people.

The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate. Values may 'matter most' to voters, but they always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won....

Bingo.

Bottom line- Liberals and queers don't seem that important when you're collecting unemployment at age 37.