If Democrats

think stem-cell research is going to be a wedge issue for them, they have a rude awakening.

There are so many things to get the fascists on, but trying to ape the religious right won't get the Democrats anywhere.

Yep:

I suspect there's a similar dynamic at work when it comes to stem-cell research. Here the substantive merits pretty clearly point in one direction (it's a good idea), but the metaphorical value to Democrats may be limited at best. That's because underlying the stem-cell issue is a deeper debate about the way science is changing our lives. On one side of this debate are those who believe biotechnology is mostly a force for good, and that reining it in is basically reactionary. On the other side are those more troubled by the moral and ethical questions raised by advances in biotechnology. The problem for Democrats is that the American public splits a lot more evenly on these questions than it does on the narrower question of whether to extract stem cells from discarded embryos.

This stuff really isn't a "left/right" issue, just as the Schiavo case wasn't, but the nutroots' support of the loving husband stemmed not from the facts of the case or from the rotten precedent it set, but instead stemmed from simple kneejerk reaction to what they erroneously believed was the other side's exclusive support from the right-to-life people (in other words, the right-to-lifers are always wrong, and therefore it was easy to support a brazen liar, his whackjob attorney, and an incompetent judge, facts notwithstanding). Until the nutroots understands that the "progressive" position to take is NOT in support of medical killing of the disabled, they are going to continue to offend large numbers of the voting public. I can say this about the public at large, which is by and large ignorant of what bioethics is really about and have been conned by the "libertarian" crapola of "privacy."

Besides, this is a nonstarter compared to the war, the economy, gas prices, the environment, you name it.

If Democrats want a real wedge issue, they should hammer on election fraud.