Red Staters, you just got played!

Liberal author Thomas Frank and conservative opinion maker Richard Viguerie agree that Bush roped in voters with moral issues, only to sell them out with his Social Security plan.

Republican politicians constantly use the culture wars to hoodwink religious people into voting for big-business ideas that, ultimately, run against the financial interests of the voters. The disaster could come when social conservatives, people who've been duped into voting for the GOP on the assumption that it was the party of morals (rather than of money), might finally see the truth. If, as some economists predict, Social Security privatization goes badly for working people, with traditional benefits cut and stock market gains diminutive, wouldn't family-values voters realize that the Republican Party has diminished the value of their checking accounts?