Until very recently, this was all going quite well. George W. Bush’s second term got off to a very promising start, as far as his New York constituency was concerned. They liked his courageous talk about Social Security privatization, as well as the strong focus on tax cuts and fiscal discipline. These are the articles of faith among Factor and his group, and they couldn’t have been more delighted that the president seemed to be reading from their script; they were getting what they’d paid for. But now the Social Security plan is stalled, if not totally dead, while Washington braces for a culture-war showdown over candidates for the Supreme Court. Factor is in an awkward spot. It had always been his intention to steer clear of issues that might pit his New York crowd of mostly fiscal conservatives against the social conservatives that dominate much of the rest of America. Now this strategy seems impractical and perhaps even a little embarrassing. Today’s Republican Party is held together by a tenuous agreement between the free marketeers of the party’s donor class and the Evangelical foot soldiers of the party’s voting base. Both sides claim credit for Bush’s reelection. But in the fight over the Supreme Court, the religious right will be ascendant, leaving fiscal conservatives with little to show for their investment. That raises a question: Might it possibly be that these rich, sophisticated New Yorkers have been taken for a ride?
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/features/12265/index.html
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