The Republicans know that the hot button issues are Race and Sex.
The GOP has learned to find an issue that makes people go stupid and unable to focus on issues like health care and the economy. The things that do that most reliably have to do with either race or sex. (Don't think for a minute that sex is not what's behind gay marriage and abortion for Fundies and other conservatives). And once they have rendered people all squirmy and unable to think, they offer themselves as the saviors who will protect them from these issues that make them so uncomfortable.
A man from Alabama that I met at my Democratic caucus warned that the Republicans knew exactly what they were doing with the gay marriage thing--winning the South. This man guarenteed that conservative Southerners would vote for Bush for that reason alone, and that the Republicans were using the issue just like they had used Willie Horton to defeat Dukakis in 1988 when they played blatantly into the racism of the South.
4. Its hard to fight this stuff, and the Republicans know it....
because people's responses are highly emotional and irrational.
I wish I knew how to counter it. We are always (rightly) trying to take the high road and not appeal to people's fears and predjudices. The Right has no problems with that. If it works, they do it.
'new issues' that are brought forth during the next election year. Pesonally, I think gay marriage is a good idea, but the timing of it makes me suspicious. Instead of helping the cause, I believe it took the cause back several years.
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