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“Getting people elected, unfortunately has a lot to do with dividing…It’s like busting a big rock, you know? You try to chip off your piece and break the rest of it into so many smithereens that they don’t matter,” said Mark Gooden, a republican strategist featured in the political documentary film “A Perfect Candidate.”

Divisions and wedges in politics.

As certain as death and taxes the 2004 campaign season will feature major wedge issues manufactured by the Republican party to divide and break down the American electorate into small manageable pieces.

The GOP knows it needs wedge issues to appeal to some of its part-time constituencies, the white working class and under-voting, born-again Christians.

After all, the Bush administration and those republican candidates lower on the ticket will not run on a net loss of jobs, trillions of dollars of accumulated national debt, lies about Iraq, weakening environmental safeguards, and American body counts. It is easier and indeed imperative to construct a noxious monster to run against to provide a rationale for reelection--a creeping fiend hell-bent on destruction of our most sacred institutions.

Because of the success of the alternative media’s devastating rebuttal to the Bush administration’s stated grounds for war, concocting an external monster will not play too well. And so the monster will be internal. And the monster is: Gays! It is gays who are trying to destroy marriage and the family, and to corrupt the minds of innocent children.

As reported in the Washington Post (Mike Allen. October 25, 2003. "Gay Marriage Looms as Issue, GOP Push for Amendment Is Dilemma for Bush") gay marriage will be pushed onto the presidential campaign stage by major players of the Republican Party.

What better way to reach out to the white working class and born-again Christians, pieces of the electorate that the GOP absolutely needs in 2004? And who cares about the tolerance and compassion of California, the Northeast, the Northwest and indeed the northern Mid-West states? The GOP is not going to win there anyway. The targets are Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida and West Virginia.

Writes the Post's Allen: "Party strategists said the issue could be a bonanza for mobilizing conservatives to fund campaigns and turn out to vote, particularly in the South. Conservative groups said they plan to challenge candidates to sign a pledge in support of a constitutional amendment precluding gay marriage, then use the results -- along with votes Republicans hope to force in the House and Senate -- as a wedge against Democrats."

Bring em' on!

The gay marriage idea is a political loser, and it can backfire on the GOP. Not because Bush and the republican candidates will be seen as dividers and not uniters, but rather because most voters, including the white working class and many born-again Christians, have other pressing concerns--the economy and jobs, the environment, education, Social Security and Medicare--and the GOP's coming focus on gay marriage will reinforce the perception that the GOP is way out of touch with these concerns, swaying independents into the democratic presidential nominee’s column.

Bigotry against lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered while pervasive and ugly and too often violent will simply not lead enough people to abandon their economic interests provided that the democratic nominee and congressional candidates promulgate a clear, confident and aggressive program illustrating that the democrats offer a government—true or not—that is looking out for the interests of this demographic, and rhetoric that directly appeals to the use of the gay marriage issue as an example of the GOP’s misplaced concerns. What is needed is for the democratic presidential nominees to actually push the issue onto the presidential stage himself:

“Look, Jackie and Paula down the street getting married or having a civil union because they love each other does not affect your son getting a decent job or your parents getting what they deserve after a lifetime’s work for their retirements,” said the Democratic nominee. “George W. Bush, I say to you: Mr. President, you and your party have the wrong priorities, and this gay marriage issue that your people are pushing is not putting food on families’ tables, is not helping daughters get to college, is not putting police on the street, and is not safeguarding our country. I know gay and lesbian people, and I love them and I will fight for them as president as much as I will fight for the rights of all Americans. And with all due respect, Mr. Bush, it’s time for you and this manufactured diversion from what really matters to take a rest. And I promise to provide real leadership and representation for the rights and security and the sacred promise of a bright future for all Americans.”

That will play almost anywhere. Right through your heart, GOP.

(Michael Leon is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. He has been published nationally in The Progressive, In These Times, CounterPunch and WBAI Pacifica Radio’s website. He can be reached at: maleon@terracom.net.) his article is copyright by Michael Leon, ,published by OpEdNews.com, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this entire credit paragraph is attached.