--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> It's not even very good at following that model. if you're
> constantly
> drawing lines, you're shrinking your base, not expanding it.
> Politics
> should be about finding allies and converts, not smoking out
> heretics.
This is how the GOP gained it's current base: finding allies and converts (ahem, some, quite literally "converts") and expanding the base, e.g., Franks' "Kansas" model, to include people sold on a false dream that eventually works against them.
The demise of this base may begin with the more fanatical element "smoking out heretics," per Doug's observation, or when Americans finally decide that the "values" so popular now are too inconvenient.
My money is on inconvenience.
-Deborah