Ghost in the Schiavo Machine

Why are Tom Delay, Jeb Bush and the rest of the right-wing hate machine is focusing so much attention on the Terry Schiavo case -- which increasingly looks like it is costing the Republicans big time in the polls?

The most succinct explanation comes from this pseudonymous poster in Atrios' Haloscan comments:

We're watching an experiment in whether getting 100% of 30% of the voters will keep an election close enough to steal...
Davis X. Machina | Email | Homepage | 03.23.05 - 5:31 pm | #

In other words: Bush and Congress may be looking pretty bad to the general public, but Rove may have calculated that a fully-energized fundamentalist base may be more important in winning future elections than losing ground among more apathetic sections of the public.