| From Skoop's Blog over the weekend: In a confidential March memo, Gage writes that when center voters are asked to pick a word to describe the GOP "religious right is the dominate term as to why the center does not like the Republican Party. And there's more as he waxes on, "It is the left's successful vilification of the term "religious right" to imply intolerance and ignorance that is handicapping Republicans' ability to reach voters in the center."
The problem isn't just that the Religious Right has hijacked the Republican brand. It's also that GOP strategists apparently think that the image issue for the Religious Right is a matter of successful framing by "the left." Could it be that when representatives of the Religious Right say things like: According to (Gary) Glenn, an Oxford University study suggests that college-aged gay men will die eight to 20 years earlier than straight men, and that gay people are more likely to experience domestic violence, a life-threatening disease and premature death.
that people tend to develop negative impressions of that person as not only intolerant of others, but also the movement they represent? I mean, that is nothing more than a modernized version of the belief that there is scientific evidence that African Americans have smaller brains, and are thus not as intelligent as white people. The Left hasn't villified these people, they've villified themselves; and the GOP has no one to blame but itself for tying its fortunes to those who so eagerly say stupid things in public. By the way, this is the same Gary Glenn who is planning a referendum drive to repeal Kalamazoo's new anti-discrimination ordinance. I certainly hope he's successful in getting the requisite number of signatures for a November vote. What the GOP really needs right now is months and months of this guy in the headlines, flapping his gums on behalf of the Religious Right about how homosexuals are the gravest threat to marriage since Henry VIII formed the Church of England as part of his a vain effort to sire a son. |
