The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100%. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.... Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some god-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

Electorally, Its useful to divide Bushs supporters in two. On one side, the economic conservatives and centrist traditional GOPers; on the other, the true-believing religious electorate. Hes lost many of the middle-roaders with his Iraq, Katrina and Schiavo bungling. However, as long as he has most of his religious voters, itll be hard to push him below 35-40% job approval in the national polls.

Fear is likely to remain a Bush tactic. His people have tried to polarize voters into seeing a fight between good and evil, stoking fear and a sense of global chaos. The doomsday preachers are on the same side.

The majority of Americans are not in their camp, but there is a large minority certainly 25%, probably not 40% that want more Bible and less science, abstinence rather than contraception, fewer drugs and more faith (faith-healing) and uphold confidence in fuel supplies and resources because God will provide.

My mum wrote me a letter the other day and she said, "Son," -- she's 86 years old -- she said, "Son, please don't become a Democrat".

And I told my mum, I called her and I said: "Mum, you know what? I want my party back. I don't want to become a Democrat. I want my party back."

The Republican Party that I knew, that I grew up in, a moderate party, a party that believed in fiscal discipline, a party that believed in small government, a party that had genuine conservative values. This is not a conservative leadership. This is radical leadership. I called them neo-Jacobins. They are radical. They're not conservative. They've stolen my party and I would like my party back.