Reply #5: these "values voters" are merely tools to be exploited by the cons [View All]

[UpInArms]

and I do mean "cons" as in CON-ARTISTS - the freaks that play their stupid shell game - the "You want to outlaw abortion? I'll give the rich another tax cut". See the book "What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America"

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0805073396&itm=1

What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
FROM THE PUBLISHER
With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"--the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers.

In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"--how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union--Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism--the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat--and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy.

A brilliant analysis--and funny to boot--What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People.