She also advises:

Democrats should also do with stem cell research what Republicans did with gay marriage: present the issue for a vote on every possible state ballot. Republican Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader from Tennessee, just demonstrated the power of the issue. Frist’s surprise endorsement of a bill that would approve federal funds for new lines of stem cells enraged the right. But Frist knows the political center supports it, and the political center is where a presidential contender wants to be. In stem cell research, Democrats, for once, have an issue that fires up their base and cuts to the center, across diverse demographic groups.

ME: I’m not sure it fires up their base so much as the issue (along with cloning) is so confusing and muddled, that people want to err on the side of what the loudest side says is good and right. And the loudest side is winning–and in the states too. In fact, even in the states where they are not, the governor may decide to impose that which all sophisticates consider good and right on the state anyway, as just happened in Illinois.