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President Bush's support for the FMA pretty much terminated the weaks chances of any GOP nominee, though. That fired up the Democratic base here.

I don't know about that.

I suspect the same is true nationally.

Well that's definitely false. The FMA is a huge winner for the Republican base AND swing voters especially conservative Democrats. It'll help us pick up seats in the senate, no question.

Kerry is not a good candidate - Democrats view him as the least bad. Their base didn't like Bush personally for made-up reasons, and that was wearing off. He just gave them something real to hate him for, while antagonizing libertarians everywhere.

And don't pretend there isn't a major generational issue here which will cost the GOP big-time in future elections. I know all about such things as my father, then an about to retire Democratic pol, told me exactly how he and Leon Panetta were using Pete Wilson's idiot 1994 anti-immigrant initiatives to bury the GOP here in California. Things worked out exactly as he hoped they would. He gloated at me about it at the time and still does.

Bush did this holding his nose too - he was trying to limit GOP base losses caused by his Can't Say No To Spending, Medicare drug and immigration policies. He doesn't get anything new, and only tied off a bleeding artery.

Here's an informative post from Daniel Drezner's blog on the subject:

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001121.html

"Yes, Bush believes that an amendment is needed to preserve marriage as being between a man and a woman. From what I have heard from friends who are more than a little bit involved in the BC04 operations, they are not really sure how this is going to cut. The most obvious gains would be in the "Red" states that Bush is pretty much a lock to carry. They say that they do not know how this is going to cut in close Red states like, say New Hampshire, where a lot of Bush voters in 2000 define themselves more as libertarians than conservatives or loyal Republicans, nor do they think this is going to help them at all in some of the close "Blue" states like Minnesota, which they felt was trending Republican and where they thank there is a fairly significant moderate swing vote. I am told that as you move up the chain to the higher level gurus, no one thinks this is going to win the election for Bush, most think it will wash out as neutral, and a few think they could lose the election over it if the economy does not significantly improve. I am also told that, with the Massachusetts ruling, the pressure from the base was becoming inexorable, and that they felt that not endorsing the amendment was definitely going to hurt them. Thus, they made a tough call and came down on the side that you would expect, the one less likely to hurt them. In other words, this is about typical for every campaign, which has to make at least one high stakes decision that could cut either way, but which they can't kick down the road. Dan Drezner may have some sources that he could cross check this with; what I have said comes from three different people, some of whom differ a little bit on their analysis, but none of whom would strongly disagree that what I have written is a fair summary.

posted by: Daniel L. Merriman on 02.24.04 at 10:08 PM [permalink]"

"Well that's definitely false. The FMA is a huge winner for the Republican base AND swing voters especially conservative Democrats. It'll help us pick up seats in the senate, no question."

I agree with that.

The other poster seems to think Arnold became the Governator because he's a RINO. This is almost certainly untrue. He became Governor because he is a celebrity who stepped into the breatch and advocated a fiscal conservative line and projected leadership when Californians wanted it.

Arnold could have been Reagan II and he would have won.