Jonathan Chait has an op-ed piece this morning in The Los Angeles Times [they may make you register] that uses the Schiavo case to illustrate a larger political point. It's essentially the same point that Thomas Frank seems to be making in What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, a book that I started reading and must go back and finish. The thesis is that there's a voting bloc in America that cares primarily about what they see as issues of morality — banning abortions, rolling back gay rights, etc. — and that it keeps getting fooled. They think, when they vote for someone like George W. Bush, that they're voting for those things. What they get are token gestures in these directions and a lot of genuine action to lower taxes for the wealthy and to aid corporate interests, which may not be what they want.
Anyway, in case you don't want to read the whole Chait piece or register over at the Times, I'm going to quote his last paragraph…
Three years ago, a casino-owning Louisiana Indian tribe called the Coushatta hired [GOP activist and lobbyist Jack] Abramoff to help stop another tribe from opening a casino, which the Coushatta feared would dilute their business. Abramoff hired former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, who enlisted Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who spurred his followers to send thousands of letters opposing the new casino. The poor souls riled up to stop legalized gambling had no idea that they were pawns of another casino. It's a perfect metaphor for the relationship between the Republican elite and the voters who put them into office.
Democrats are hoping, obviously, that there's a fracture coming in the G.O.P. constituency. The anti-abortion voters will probably never go in any significant numbers to the Dems but they might be persuaded to either move the Republicans farther to the right, thereby losing more of the center, or to split off and back a third party ticket. If nothing else, they might just stay home. It's a nice theory but I don't think the Democrats should count on it. They ought to look into finding a candidate someone will vote for.