Right wing can be wrong

Jeff Jarvis writes

I've long been amazed at Bush's insistence on playing to his right wing. He certainly wasn't voted by a mandate! He did not have a right-wing revolution behind him. He gained strength across the board because of 9/11. If he had played to the center, he might have had a chance of getting votes he never could have gotten before (see: me) but he turned away those voters by swinging further right by appointing Ashcroft and lately by pushing the edge on gay marriage, stem-cell research, and by not pulling back his Vietnam attack hawks ... well, you know the list. I used to think this was ideology but now I wonder whether it is odd political paranoia: a chronic need to "solidify the base."

Yeah, I don't get it, either.