sigh.

[sisyphusshrugged]

So we're all debating religion now, in that marvellously helpful sense in which the word religion is used to mean "that laundry list of unrelated governmental initiatives supported by a highly organized of activists representing a minority of believers who claim that God is behind their policy positions" (and you'd want to keep in mind that the same coalition contains not a few who claim that judaism, catholicism and islam are wholly owned subsidiaries of Satan - not merely wrong, but demonically inspired and to be fought). The Rev. Mr. Falwell, as a matter of fact, claims that the Antichrist is a jewish man.

That group agrees with Our Fearless Leader that last Tuesday bestowed a mandate.

To them, not him.

But the untold story of the 2004 election, according to national religious leaders and grass-roots activists, is that evangelical Christian groups were often more aggressive and sometimes better organized on the ground than the Bush campaign. The White House struggled to stay abreast of the Christian right and consulted with the movement's leaders in weekly conference calls. But in many respects, Christian activists led the charge that GOP operatives followed and capitalized upon.

This was particularly true of the same-sex marriage issue. One of the most successful tactics of social conservatives -- the ballot referendums against same-sex marriage in 13 states -- bubbled up from below and initially met resistance from White House aides, Christian leaders said.

In dozens of interviews since the election, grass-roots activists in Ohio, Michigan and Florida credited President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, with setting a clear goal that became a mantra among conservatives: To win, Bush had to draw 4 million more evangelicals to the polls than he did in 2000. But they also described a mobilization of evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics that took off under its own power.

In battlegrounds such as Ohio, scores of clergy members attended legal sessions explaining how they could talk about the election from the pulpit. Hundreds of churches launched registration drives, thousands of churchgoers registered to vote, and millions of voter guides were distributed by Christian and antiabortion groups.

The rallying cry for many social conservatives was opposition to same-sex marriage. But concern about the Supreme Court, abortion, school prayer and pornography also motivated these "values voters." Same-sex marriage, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, was "the hood ornament on the family values wagon that carried the president to a second term."

The hood ornament. Isn't that special?

Imagine how gay americans would feel if they were the fluffy dice.

The problem with this theory is that the evidence for it is very shaky (although I don't expect that a group which has thrown itself behind creationism and biology-free abstinence-based education programs that don't work would be troubled by that)

Exit polls do not permit a direct comparison of how many evangelical and born-again Americans voted in 2000 and 2004 because the way pollsters identified these voters changed. Four years ago voters leaving polls were asked: "Do you consider yourself part of the conservative Christian political movement, also known as the religious right?" In 2004, the question was changed to: "Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian?"

Fourteen percent answered "yes" in 2000 and 23 percent did so in 2004, but polling specialists said the 2004 wording virtually assures more affirmative answers.

The percentage of voters who said they attend church more than once a week grew from 14 to 16 percent, a significant difference in an election decided by three percentage points. These voters backed President Bush over John F. Kerry 64 percent to 35 percent. Similarly, the percent of the electorate that believes abortion should be "illegal in all cases" grew from 13 to 16 percent. These voters backed Bush by 77 percent to 22 percent.

In the two major battlegrounds, Ohio and Florida, exit polls showed Bush substantially improved his support among voters who attend church more than once a week. At the same time, the percentage of the electorate that goes to church this often actually fell.

On the other hand, the evidence is quite strong that what won this election for Mr. Bush is not what his voters believe but what they don't believe

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.

although it's important not to underestimate those things that they believe which are demonstrably untrue. After all, people who believed terror was the major issue of the election went for Bush 86/14, possibly because of the kind of media coverage that caused the Washington Post to wait until after the election to publish this (wouldn't want to muddy the waters with facts while people are still making up their minds)

The United States remains woefully unprepared to protect the public against terrorists wielding biological agents despite dramatic increases in biodefense spending by the Bush administration and considerable progress on many fronts, according to government officials and specialists in bioterrorism and public health.

Although administration officials have spoken at times about bioterrorism's dangers, they are more alarmed than they have signaled publicly, U.S. officials said. As President Bill Clinton did, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have thrust themselves into the issue in depth.

"There's no area of homeland security in which the administration has made more progress than bioterrorism, and none where we have further to go," said Richard A. Falkenrath, who until May was Bush's deputy homeland security adviser and is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Unlike many other areas of domestic defense, which are centralized in the Department of Homeland Security, responsibility for biodefense is spread across various agencies. It is coordinated by a little-known White House aide, Kenneth Bernard, whose power is relatively limited.

Biological and nuclear attacks rank as officials' most feared types of terrorist attacks. Because of the technical difficulties in creating such weapons, they reckon the chances of a devastating attack are currently small. But the consequences of a big biological strike could be epically catastrophic, and rapid advances in science are placing the creation of these weapons within the reach of even graduate students, they said.

Given the escalating risks, many public health and bioterrorism experts, members of Congress and some well-placed Bush administration officials express mounting unease about what they believe are weaknesses in the nation's biodefenses.

Let's see. What are the things Mr. Bush plans to use his "political capital" for?

Privatization of Social Security, relaxing environmental regulations to make them more industry-friendly (not enough mercury out there, folks), nailing his tax cuts in place, and more of the same policies that were such a huge success in his first term.

Healthcare? Well, red state voters aren't all that concerned. Turns out they should be. They're dying at a higher rate than the people in blue states, and so are their babies. Apparently lack of health insurance is involved.

His less faithbased fans were apparently under the impression that Our Fearless Leader was going to acknowledge the reality they steadfastly denied during the campaign after a win, and are taken aback that he hasn't. We were only supposed to be living in a dreamworld until after the votes were counted, I guess.

Which, as I recall, was the the same kind of addleheaded wish-fulfillment fantasy hard-hitting analytical thinking that got us into a war in Iraq.

And after all, that worked out great.

If it floats your boat, please feel free to engage in circular metadiscussion about tolerance and whether opposing intolerance is intolerant of intolerant people. Kindly refrain from assigning God to one side of the argument.

Comments

[antigone-ks.livejournal.com]

Imagine how gay americans would feel if they were the fluffy dice.

At least the dice don't get bird shit on them.

[phenyx.livejournal.com]

His less faithbased fans were apparently under the impression that Our Fearless Leader was going to acknowledge the reality they steadfastly denied during the campaign after a win, and are taken aback that he hasn't. We were only supposed to be living in a dreamworld until after the votes were counted, I guess.

I'm shocked. Shocked!

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was pretty damn amused by the Roger Simon quote. He's been tossing around apocalyptic threats of bloodshed and armed insurrection for weeks if Bush lost, now he's mildly disappointed that Bush didn't blithely abandon what Simon's been demanding they accept at the point of a sword.

At that, it makes more sense than his mysteries.