...is a good man.  It's just that he's under a lot of pressure--his job is really hard, ya know--and sometimes the religious right makes him mad and he does things that really aren't like who he is inside.  Really, he's a good man..."

I agree with this statement.  I think the GOP generally completely ignores it's base, mostly out of necessity.  Bush and the rest will give them little token victories here and there, but when it comes to actually sealing the deal and passing legislation their implements their wingnut ajenda, they just never quite get it done.  

My theory is that this is for basically two reasons.  One, they know these issues are not what the vast majority of American's care about and that these stances on issues are not in line with most people.  They make a political decision to sit the fence.  Secondly, and perhaps more important, the re-thugs (the smart ones at least) know they can't win without these issues hanging out there to keep people fired up.  So they let these issues hang out there and never really act on them, they just talk a lot about them.

I truly believe that the Repub party is on the verge of imploding on itself.  Once Bush is gone, there will be a vacuum there that is going to be really hard to fill.  He is in some ways the perfect GOP candidate.  He has an uncanny ability to keep all sides of their base happy and to pick off enough centrist, moderate, independent and democratic votes to win... by small margins.  With him gone, where do they go?  I think they will be, and probably are right now, in real trouble of tearing apart at the seams.