8mm
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Obama should proceed cautiously in his efforts to woo religious voters, however, taking heed of the ambiguous lessons of Bush's efforts at religious outreach. Indeed, the steeply declining fortunes of the Bush administration in its second term illustrate the considerable risk of aligning oneself too closely with intensely pious members of the electorate. While the biggest factors in explaining Bush's record-low approval ratings are the seemingly endless Iraq war and the lacklustre American economy, Bush's slide in the polls began in March 2005, with the decision of the president and the Republican Congress to reward religious voters for their support by intervening in the wrenching right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo - an act that disgusted all but the most extreme opponents of euthanasia. Likewise, Bush's nomination of the evangelical Harriet Miers to the US supreme court blew up in his face, as nearly every other faction of the conservative movement openly and adamantly rejected her as an intellectually unworthy nominee. Getting too close to evangelicals can be political poison, it seems, even for a conservative Republican.
8mm