Reply #19: Politics [View All]

[soup]

You sure called that one correctly.

TALLAHASSEE - By injecting themselves into the life-or-death drama of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman whose fate has become a cause celebre for the nation's Christian conservative movement, Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican-led Legislature are reflecting the wishes of a constituency that could be critical to GOP success in next year's elections.

Although several moderate Republican lawmakers voted Tuesday against allowing Bush to overrule the court order that removed Schiavo's feeding tube, the governor's actions on such a high-profile case could energize the very evangelicals who stayed home in 2000 when Bush's brother, now the president, lost the national popular vote and narrowly won Florida.

>snip<

The Schiavo vote Tuesday unfolded with leaders from the Christian Coalition, the Florida Catholic Conference, Operation Rescue and other religious groups -- groups that bind together a voting bloc that President Bush's senior political advisor, Karl Rove, has pledged to court next year -- watching from the public galleries.

Rove lamented in a 2001 speech that 4 million evangelicals failed to vote, suggesting that their absence from the polls was largely to blame for the narrow outcome.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/7074643.htm