REPUBLICANS FORGET THAT SINNERS VOTE, TOO

As usual, Republicans are hoping that righteous voters will come
through for them on Election Day. But this year looks like the
revenge of the sinners.

The sinners aren't easy to count, since they don't spend a lot of time
doing grass-roots politicking. There is no Washington lobby for the
Coalition of the Damned. They don't like to confess their urges to
pollsters. But there are enough of them, particularly in places where
Republicans are struggling, to cast doubt on the party's long-standing
strategy.

Why did Republicans assume there was a Moral Majority? Where in the
Bible does it say that the virtuous outnumber the wicked? When you
define wickedness the way Republicans do, the numbers are daunting.

One of the G.O.P. Congress's few achievements this year was a law to
crack down on Internet gambling, an industry that counted eight
million American customers last year -- about four times the
membership of the Christian Coalition. The new law hasn't stopped the
online gamblers from betting, but it will give them second thoughts
about voting Republican.

The Republican war on marijuana -- the chief priority of the current
drug czar -- isn't playing any better in the heartland. More than 40
percent of people over the age of 12 have tried marijuana, and more
than three-quarters of Americans support legalizing it for medical
purposes. The White House and the Justice Department have had little
luck in their attempts to stop states from legalizing medical
marijuana, but they have succeeded in alienating voters.

These federal intrusions are especially scorned by independent voters
in the Western states where Republicans have been losing ground, like
Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and Montana. Western Democrats have been
siphoning off libertarian voters by moderating their liberal views on
issues like gun control, but Republicans have been driving
libertarians away with their wars on vice and their jeremiads against
gay marriage ( and their attempt to regulate that from Washington, too
).

Libertarian voters tend to get ignored by political strategists
because they're not easy to categorize or organize. They don't
congregate in churches or union halls; they don't unite to push
political agendas. Many don't even call themselves libertarians,
although they qualify because of their social liberalism and economic
conservatism: they want the government out of their bedrooms as well
as their wallets.

They distrust moral busybodies of both parties, and they may well be
the most important bloc of swing voters this election, as David Boaz
and David Kirby conclude in a new study for the Cato Institute.
Analyzing a variety of voter surveys, they estimate that libertarians
make up about 15 percent of voters -- a bloc roughly comparable in
size to liberals and to conservative Christians, and far bigger than
blocs like Nascar dads or soccer moms.

They're especially prevalent in the West, where half a dozen states
have legalized medical marijuana. When Californians approved one of
the first medical marijuana laws, in 1996, drug warriors were so
convinced it would lead to a catastrophic spike in illegal use by
teenagers that they sponsored a study to document the damage. But
there was no catastrophe: after the law, marijuana use by teenagers
actually declined in California.

In the decade since, as the Marijuana Policy Project documented in a
recent study, popular support for legalized medical marijuana has
increased in California and in virtually every other state with a
similar law. Last year it was favored by 78 percent of respondents in
a Gallup poll.

Yet these realities still haven't registered with Republicans in
Washington. This year the White House drug czar, John Walters, and
his minions have been out campaigning in Nevada, Colorado and South
Dakota, which have marijuana initiatives on the ballot. The drug
warriors are still sounding the discredited alarms about youths
turning into potheads. Their fervor's not surprising -- they may even
believe their own hype.

What's surprising is the political stupidity of the meddling.
Westerners, no matter what they think of marijuana, don't appreciate
sermons from federal officials on how to vote. In 2002, when the
White House campaigned against another marijuana ballot initiative in
Nevada, the state's attorney general said it was "disturbing" to see
the federal interference in a state election.

This year, with Republicans in so much trouble in the West, the
missionaries from Washington aren't doing them any favors. They need
every sinner's vote they can get.