Even empty political rhetoric can have disastrous consequences. The increasingly phony political posturing over stem cell research has the potential to ruin real lives and to wreck the state’s real economic future.
In his intriguing book “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Thomas Frank advanced the idea that Republican politicians who pander to religious extremists on so-called cultural issues don’t really want to win.
According to Frank, Republican strategists are fully aware they can never hope to overcome the U.S. Constitution to outlaw abortion, force prayer in public schools or send people to prison for burning dry goods that happen to be red, white and blue.