Makes Plan to Kiss new Baby in front of Cameras at first Opportunity!
That's what you are not going to read in the headlines!
Following the 2006 elections the Republican lovefest with the Christian Coalition seems to be rapidly breaking down. Many people speculated that Republicans were only getting cozy with Christian leaders and communities in order to stir up their base and get out the vote, breaking from the long political strategy of moving to the center to capture swing voters. In 2004 the strategy worked great Republicans retreated from the center further and mobilized their base and they squeaked out their second squeaky victory in a row.
However, in mobilizing that base Republicans had to present themselves as moral leaders concerned about religion. Politicians have long been able to talk out of two sides of their mouths and this appears to be even easier for a politician to do when they can talk politics out one side and religion out the other. Politicians are rarely held accountable by voters and even less frequently by their Maker in Chief.
Following the Democratic victories, Republicans are rapidly abandoning the Carl Rove strategies that now appear to have lost them the Congress and might lose them the White House after what now feels like 6 very short years in total power. The fastest way for Republicans to retrench is to kick organized political religion to the curb like a rattle snake in a Yugo.
The Cheney's are going to stand by their daughter, who stood by them through two elections even when Dick's administration and party were set to roast same sex marriages and their children over spits. She campaigned for them through thick and thin and they will support her now.
Similarly, Bush despite his affected good ol' boy good ol' Christian persona will not attack the couple either. Politically, the Republicans have attacked couples over same sex marriages because its easy to mobilize their base when the key word is 'sex'. However, its a lot more difficult for Republicans to carry off an attack against the family and after all that's what Mary Cheney and her 15 year partner Heather Poe have and what they are growing with a baby.
There is no political victory to be had by Republicans under the rules of fire bombing the center to mobilize the right when it calls for the fire bombing of a baby. Politicians may have religious morals but those morals can not win out against the political necessity to kiss babies in the public eye at every possible opportunity.
This proves to be a good analogy for the current Republican dilemma. They have used the Christian Coalition to achieve power, but they have learned along the way that:
1. They are too morally bankrupt as a party to govern morally and,
2. Christian Morals do not make for a political platform that can keep them in power.
There is only one political motivation aside from kissing babies in public that runs even deeper in that mysterious breed of homosapien called the politician, and that motivation is to maintain and gain power.
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