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Now comes the christian revolution { November 5 2004 }

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   http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1345578,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1345578,00.html

November 05, 2004

The revolution starts now, declares the Right as it seeks its rewards
By Roland Watson
Worried Democrats fear the worst as Christians press for sweeping changes

FACING increased Republican majorities on Capitol Hill, there are four words haunting Democrats.

Tom DeLay, the immensely powerful Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, was explaining to a group of California businessmen what a second Bush term would mean. "We’ve got the House, we’ve got the Senate, and if we get another term in the White House, it’s ‘Katy, bar the door’."

No one in Washington needs a personal introduction to Katy to know what Mr DeLay was talking about, and it sends shivers up Democratic spines. The balance of political power on Capitol Hill has shifted firmly to the Right, thanks to the arrival of four new Republican senators to replace four Democrats, who included some of the most moderate consensus-builders in the chamber, and an expanded majority in the House.

Conservatives can barely contain their excitement about what this heralds, citing a range of long-cherished goals such as privatising the state pension, slashing taxes, banning gay marriage, remaking the Supreme Court in their image and overturning its Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised abortion. "Now comes the revolution," said Richard Viguerie, a direct-mail campaigner who has played a significant role in returning the solid Republican majorities in Washington.

Although Mr Bush used his acceptance speech to say he wanted to reach out to Democrats and others who had voted for John Kerry, Mr Viguerie made clear that the Christian Right was looking to reap the reward of its support for the President.

"Make no mistake, conservative Christians and ‘value voters’ won this election for George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress," Mr Viguerie said in an e-mail to fellow conservatives quoted in the New York Times. "It’s crucial that the Republican leadership not forget this -- as much as some will try."

Christian leaders have made clear how indebted they believe Mr Bush is to them, pointing to the votes in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two of the biggest prizes. Gary Bauer, a Christian activist who has run for president in the past, said that Mr Bush had lost the first but won the second because the Ohio ballot included an initiative to ban gay marriage, which helped drive Christians to the polls.

If there were any doubts among conservatives about whether Mr Bush would put consensus-building ahead of the radical agenda he campaigned on, he moved to answer them yesterday. Mr Bush, who never felt constrained after he lost the popular vote in 2000, claimed a firm mandate.

"The people have spoken," he said, making clear he would lecture any foot-draggers in Congress on the same point. "I earned political capital and now I intend to spend it." Even in Republican ranks, though, there are signs of nerves. Arlen Specter, a moderate Senator from Pennsylvania, cautioned Mr Bush not to nominate Supreme Court justices who would seek to overturn abortion rights.

Mr Specter, the likely new chairman of the Senate judiciary committee which would hold confirmation hearings on new Supreme Court justices, warned Mr Bush not to choose divisive figures, suggesting that they would fail to get through.

"The President is well aware of what happened when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster," said Mr Specter, referring to a swath of judicial nominees for the lower courts that were blocked by Democrats.

But Republicans believe they have the perfect answer in Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader in the Senate who lost his South Dakota seat.

Mr Daschle, the first Senate party leader to lose re-election in 52 years, faced a well-funded Republican drive, supported by the White House, to unseat him. Mr Daschle’s opposite number in the Senate, Republican majority leader Bill Frist, infuriated Democrats by abandoning convention and travelling to the great plains to campaign in person against him.

Conservatives are already warning that anyone who gets in the way of the second-term Bush agenda, Republican or Democrat, will face a similarly ruthless campaign to unseat them. "Not only do we have the votes, everyone knows why people lost," said Grosver Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

Mr Norquist, who has been in the vanguard of Republican policy-making, said the next four years would see the repeal of inheritance tax and giant strides towards the Right’s Holy Grail of a one-rate "flat tax" to replace banded income tax.

"We had four tax cuts in the first four years and we will have four tax cuts in the next four years," he said.

Mr Bush faces some formidable difficulties as he tries to advance his second-term agenda. His pensions plan -- younger generations pay some of their taxes into a private retirement account -- comes with transitional costs of some $2 trillion over ten years.

The Supreme Court is a significant issue because Mr Bush may have the chance to nominate as many as four new justices. There have been no changes to the bench for more than a decade.

William Rehnquist, the chief justice, is receiving cancer treatment and is unlikely to return. At least two others could retire.

When Mr DeLay gave his "Katy" warning, recounted in a new biography, he was talking among friends. In public, he has greeted Tuesday’s elections by saying: "With a bigger majority we can do even more exciting things." To Democrats, the words are no less scary.


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