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his support of Proposition 187, Wilson had become persona non grata in California’s
Hispanic community, partially contributing to the near decimation of the party in the
Golden State. For Bush to attract the Hispanic vote in 2004, then, it was helpful that the
Court—in a sense—took the affirmative action issue off the national agenda for the next
25 years. While some conservatives will continue the fight in the courts and in the
states—predicted and no doubt inspired by Justice Scalia in his dissent—others have
reached the end of the line. To California’s Ward Connerly of anti-affirmative action
Proposition 209 fame, “the battle will continue.” But to Thernstrom, it’s time to “move
on.”
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While Bush’s stance on affirmative action was clearly an effort to emphasize the
“compassionate” nature of his conservatism, his reaction to the Court’s decision striking
down Texas’s sodomy law has allowed him to appeal to the core of the Republican base.
In many ways, this attempted balancing on judicial issues is similar to that of previous
Republican presidents, particular Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush. But in contrast
to Nixon and Bush I, Bush II has made great strides in buttressing conservative support.
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Such support is also crucial to his reelection effort. After all, Bush’s political strategist,
Karl Rove, has noted that one of the main reasons why his candidate failed to capture the
popular vote in 2000 was due to his “inability to rally enough religious conservative to
the polls.” As Rove put it: “We probably failed to marshal support of the base as well as
we should have. There should have been nineteen million of them, and instead there
were fifteen million.”
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In this sense, the Court’s decision in Lawrence presents a political opportunity.
While the Court’s ruling was no doubt a liberal victory, the elevation of gay rights on the
Convention