Radical fundamentalists to GOP: submit... or else

This Daily Kos post covers two stories that appeared today, in the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The Times acknowledges that they still have the ears of top Republicans:

According to people who were at the meetings or were briefed on them, [Jim Dobson of Focus on the Family] has made the same point more politely in a series of private conversations over the last two weeks in meetings with several top Republicans, including Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser; Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader; Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the House speaker; and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader.

The WSJ points out that they're pissed:

Senate leaders, eager to calm the unrest, began moving on two nominations to the federal circuit court: former White House lawyer Brent Kavanaugh and U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle. The administration recently called leaders of social, religious and legal conservative groups to a meeting to discuss judicial nominations. But some of the biggest names boycotted the session, saying they deemed it patronizing. It didn't help that it was to be led by White House Counsel Harriet Miers, whose nomination to the Supreme Court last fall was abandoned by the president after conservatives deemed her unacceptable.

While the fundamentalists certainly aren't going to start voting Democrat in any significant numbers, their discontent might mean lower turnout among their ranks while the already-unpopular Republican party's continued attempts to pander to them might galvanize turnout among the opposition. And it's long past time that the GOP pay at the polls for catering to would-be theocrats.