Who Needs Independents and Young People?
That appears to be the attitude of Bush’s political team, given that the president has now announced his support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. This move has been widely viewed as an effort to satisfy the GOP’s conservative base and that judgement seems about right. Why would the Bushies do this? Because they’re very worried about fragmentation of the GOP base, as questions pile up about Bush’s free-spending ways and deviations from the conservative agenda (e.g., the immigration bill). They can ill afford such fragmentation in a situation where the Democratic base is consolidating, swing voters are moving away from the GOP and Bush is running behind in trial heats against the probable Democratic challenger. Sure, the GOP spinmeisters talk a good game about how none of the polls really matter at this point; and of course the Democrats are running ahead what with all their free publicity at this point in the campaign cycle; and so on. But they know better. In fact, i
