PLAYED FOR SUCKERS. Kevin Drum highlights the new Gallup poll showing a collapse in the GOP's typically overwhelming dominance among white religious voters. He notes at the end that "if even 5% of them stay home and another 5% switch to the Democrats, it's going to have a huge impact. David Kuo's new book ought to help that along nicely." Indeed, Kuo's revelations aren't actually revelatory to most political observers, but a full and frank public discussion about the state of abject suckerdom to which the GOP has always confined its religious conservative base is always welcome. This time around, Tucker Carlson actually got things rolling before Kuo did. And really, noted political analyst Michael Scanlon laid the whole thing out -- the strategy, the attitude, the goals -- with pith and precision back in 2001: ""The wackos get their information through the Christian right. . . Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."
--Sam Rosenfeld
