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1. People in America "vote for the candidate" and not the party, which makes a little sense, but has everyone either forgetting or ignoring the 5,000 assholes "the candidate" will bring into power with him, into every Cabinet post, every Department, every civilian Pentagon post, every US Attorney's office in every state, judges, White House staffers, UN/global ambassadors, etc. Most people never saw Rumsfeld/Wolfie/Ashcroft/etc. coming; they saw Powell and went "Ahhhhh," and thought Cheney was just some kind of grandfatherly dude who would bring wisdom and balance to help an inexperienced new president.
Oops.
2. In 1996, after defeating Anne Richards in TX, Bush became the unofficial but absolutely real Head of the Fundy/Evangelical anti-choice single-issue-fetus voting bloc that is basically the entire GOP activist base. That bloc is 25% of the reliable turnout voters that come out to vote for general elections, which means any national GOP candidate who says the right things about Jesus and fetuses is halfway to victory before getting out of bed on election day.
That bloc is disciplined, motivated (if it is raining live, rabid, man-eating jaguars out of the sky on election day, that 25% will go to the polls anyway, come hell or high water or mean kitties or whatever) and above all else, they are by and large very simple in nature. Fetus/Guns, or Fetus/Taxes, or Fetus/Fetus, with the recent addition of the Fetus/Anti-Immigration people. That's shooting fish in a barrel for a politicin like Bush, who speaks their language and covers all those bases easily (except, recently, on the immigration thing).
Meanwhile, Democratic candidates have us as their activist base, and we are wildly passionate about 54,332 different issues, and if the candidate is soft on just one of those, we lose steam and might even bolt. The GOP base is the single most powerful, organized, effective voting bloc in the history of democracy.
P.S. That base is also a gold mine for GOP fundraising drives. One direct-mail note to the base describing how Hillary will sell our whole Navy and the state of Oklahoma to Khomeni, after which she will pitchfork a few fetuses just to relax, and then re-read Mao's book, destroy capitalism, burn every Bible, and allow the UN to take over the planet and install One World Government that hates gun ownership, really hates Jesus, and uses fetuses for skeet-shooting practice off the Truman Balcony...
One note, seriously now, that has "Hillary" and "Fetus" in the text will bring in $20 millionb is 100 hours, most of which will be what the base was able to vacuum up from between the couch cushions, and that's a serious campaign advantage, especially in congressional races.
I cant wait for the day when the base finally realizes that the GOP is never, ever, EVER going to actually do away with Rove or Choice, because a) the base would say "Mission accomplished" and quit politics, thus leaving the GOP crippled for the next 75 years; and, b) ther party isn't about to shut off the campaign-cash spigot by doing away with the most reliable cha-ching magnet they've ever had. That'd be like the Saudi royals destroying Wahabbism and their petroleum industry...i.e. their two main sources of power.
Anyhoo, that's how it happened, for the most part. Stolen votes, yes, touch-screens, yes, etc., yes...but if you ignore the awesomely organized and totally motivated GOP base, you're missing the 800-lb. Fundy gorilla that will kick your ass every four years unless you get equally organized.
:toast:
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