Mary Cheney The Election

In 2000, 4 million evangelical Christians stayed home from voting, speculated to be due in part to the final-weekend revelation that Bush had once been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol (see this WaPost article on Karl Rove, and the Rove Doctrine of turning out your base).

According to this WaPost poll , 64 percent of voters thought that mentioning that Mary Cheney is a lesbian was "inappropriate". (I've already said I thought the comments are appropriate: Mary Cheney is out, and there's nothing shameful about a strong father/daughter bond, or with being a lesbian. It would only be inappropriate if you thought being a lesbian is immoral and shameful -- like drunk driving with kids in the car. Oh, and Mary Cheney is in charge of Dick Cheney's election effort -- so clearly he felt her lesbianness would be an advantage in this election).

But break down the numbers: only 40 percent of Kerry voters thought it was "inappropriate". That means fully 90 percent of Bush voters thought it was "inappropriate". Does that energize Bush's base, or does it keep them at home?

It keeps them at home. When Bush supporters respond about the inappropriateness of it, they don't say "Mary Cheney has every right to be a lesbian, and her rights as a full citizen shall not be denied by Kerry." They don't get activist -- they get defensive. Their response is "that's a private issue, and you should not bring up private issues."
In other words, "Shut up, I don't want to talk about it."

The only correct response to homosexuality for evangelical Christians -- a big base for the President -- is to condemn it as immoral. They vote for Bush because they believe he shares these values. Given an example of how the bottom half of the ticket does not share these values, it softens their resolve.

Bringing up Mary Cheney's sexuality softens the Bush/Cheney base.