REPUBLICAN RELIGIONIST NUTS IN A CORNER

Yesterday and today Washington witnessed a gathering of 2,000 politico-religionist loons, the Values Voter Summit. And regardless of the parade of the pathetic pygmies™ inability to make it to debates for Hispanic Americans, African-Americans, young Americans, or gay Americans they sure had their asses in gear when it came to ass-kissing the religionist loon-Americans.

According to this yesterday's Washington Post there was a lot of praying and a lot of discontent with the Republicans running for their party's presidential nomination, especially with Giuliani (who spoke today) and Full O'Mitt, who spoke yesterday. It was Friday so Flip Flop Mitt "presented himself as the antiabortion, pro-family, pro-religion contender whom Christian conservatives are seeking." They weren't. Neither Romney not Giuliani have many fans among this group, although Romney kicked Giuliani's ass in the straw poll (but, so did everyone... except McCain).

"I love his ideas on national security and defense, but you have to swallow the whole pill," Tammy Leinbach, a stay-at-home mom from Maumee, Ohio, said of Giuliani. "Our international ills come because of the warped social ills we have at home."

Craig Chorman, 54, a small-business owner from Fairport, N.Y., said he does not trust Romney's declarations of support for conservative issues because as governor, he took different positions.

"I feel like he hasn't been as consistent, and that concerns me," said Chorman. "We need somebody who stands with their core beliefs instead of putting his finger up in the wind."

They were somewhat more enthusiastic about Frederick of Hollywood and Huckabee but Alex Koppelman has a story at Salon today that speculates about the likelihood that if the religionist right's disenchantment with Giuliani, the probable Republican nominee, is strong enough, Hillary's victory could turn into an historic landslide. The same group of relihgionist right leaders who met a few weeks ago and threatened to start a third party if Giuliani wins the nomination, are meeting again today at the DC NutFest.

Conservative anger is real, at least for now. As longtime conservative activist Richard Viguerie, who was at the first meeting, told Salon, "If Giuliani is the nominee, it will be the end of the Republican Party. There's no way that conservatives are going to continue to play the role of mistress, and here's a man who's wrong on every single social issue." Viguerie predicts disaster for a Giuliani candidacy. "In a two-way race, I think he'd be hard-pressed to get 40 percent of the vote. In a three-way race, he won't come close."

...If a third-party conservative entered the race, a Giuliani candidacy really would redraw the electoral map. But that realignment would favor Clinton, not Giuliani, and make her presidency a virtual fait accompli.

Salon posits that of the 40% of Bush's core voters from 2004 who were religionist nuts, 67.5% of those would vote for a third party candidate rather than Giuliani. By their calculations that would amount to just 8 small states (48) electoral votes for Rudy, the 2 biggest being Indiana and Alabama. Although many Bush states (like Ohio, Colorado, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia and both Carolinas will swing to Hillary, Giuliani would still have a chance to win in Texas, Florida, Utah, Wyoming and even Virginia. But it wouldn't matter. Even if he picked up every single toss-up state-- a virtual impossibility considering the electoral trends-- he would still lose... by a landslide.