Everyone seems to think Scheiber means this. Sounds fair to me:
I “think” what they mean is simply Bush made sure his base showed up. If
the 4 million missing Christians theory was true, then, he just needed to
get them to vote.
I am no linguist, so, I don’t know if the term electorate means the group
eligible to vote, or those that actually voted. If the latter, then their
statement makes sense. If the former, then I understand your feeling that
it is a screwy one.
I DO think the country got more conservative on 9/11, easily a 5% swing.
But, you can’t discount the effect that the Christians turning out for Bush
had.