Shop Talk

Stephen Bainbridge joins the ranks of fiscal conservative bloggers who are concerned about Bush’s freespending ways. But he goes the extra mile and argues Bush is also in serious trouble with — wait for it — evangelicals, too:

Lately, a lot of those leaders seem pretty unhappy. Check out, for example, Cal Thomas on spending or Phyllis Schlafly on Bush’s immigration proposal. Marvin Olasky recently felt compelled to write a column imploring his fellow “Christian conservatives” to “remember that we’re better off now than we were four years ago (when Bill Clinton was in office) or than we will be a year from now, if millions of us stay home in November and John Kerry or someone else takes over.” Sounds like there’s trouble in Paradise to me.

Elections are all about turnout, kids. You’ve got to energize your base, not alienate it.