Let me start with this. I think that Matt Lewis misunderstood part of my post because of a punctuation error. One sentence was separated out from the rest of its paragraph when it should not have been, so I can see how someone might be confused.
Let me re-post it properly so that it's very clear what I was saying:
"The death penalty campaign was obviously disingenous anyway. The real issue here is that the idiots on Kilgore's staff thought that this was a good way to throw red meat to conservatives without having to commit to a real stance on taxes or abortion - issues that are far more important than the death penalty when it comes to motivating the conservative base. Voters saw through it all, and in the end the joke was on Mr. Kilgore."
What I mean to say is that the death penalty was never the real issue. The real issue was Kilgore's need to overcompensate for the fact that he had no spine on the important issues.
More later...