So much for the great wedge issue of aught-eight:
A majority of registered Californian voters oppose changing the constitution of the most populous U.S. state to bar gays from marrying, according to poll released on Wednesday.
The Field Poll survey found 51 percent against approving a possible November ballot measure to prohibit gay marriage, with 43 percent in favor. A slightly differently worded question on the same issue found 54 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor.
This confirms, for me, what Mark Schmitt argues in our June cover story, that the GOP will be campaigning less this year on specific wedge issues and more on the general wedge of being a "real" American. And at the presidential level, that neatly meshes with both John McCain's national greatness conservatism and the more sinister underground campaign of viral emails attacking Barack Obama with the muck of racism and xenophobia.
--Mori Dinauer
