Andrew Sullivan thinks he’s outted Gary Bauer as an “anti-gay” bigot, but the evidence he points to doesn’t make the case. Bauer said, in response to the Mary Cheney debate mentions: “I think it is part of a strategy to suppress traditional-values voters, to knock 1 or 2 percent off in some rural areas by causing people to turn on the president.”
Andrew Sullivan says, “Think about that for a minute. Bauer believes that his core supporters would be likely to ‘turn’ on the president just because the vice-president’s daughter is a lesbian.”
No, that’s what one assumes the Democrats are thinking, by bringing her up, and I assume that is what Bauer was saying. Oh, cool, the Kerry strategists are thinking, the evangelicals won’t go to the polls if they remember Mary! They’re still working off the old Washington Post stereotype that the “religious right” is made up of stupid sheep who would lock their door at the mention of the “l” word.
Trouble is (for the Dems), social conservatives are not all the fools the Left thinks we are. And, they may get a little disgusted-parent backlash to boot.