1 million votes

That could change an election, couldn't it?

Nearly 50 delegates and alternates to the convention are openly gay, according to the Log Cabin group, a GOP record. But some say they are torn over whether to vote for Bush in the fall even though they are pledged to support him this week at the convention.

That was not the case four years ago at the Republican convention in Philadelphia, when GOP gay activists viewed Bush as friendly to their cause. An estimated 1 million gays and lesbians voted for Bush in 2000, according to exit polls.

"I want the George Bush of 2000," said Jeff Bissiri, a delegate from Los Angeles.

*UPDATE*
A fly in the unity ointment:

At a convention where Republicans intend to showcase their unity behind the re-election of President Bush, the party's major gay group isn't exactly sticking to script.

Leaders of the Log Cabin Republicans said Sunday the group is unlikely to endorse Bush next week in the wake of the move by a conservative-dominated GOP platform committee to strongly support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and oppose legal recognition of gay civil unions.

"The president's support of the federal Marriage Amendment, and (political strategist) Karl Rove's decision to use gay and lesbian Americans as wedge issues ... and the outrageous and insulting platform language has jeopardized that endorsement," said Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans.

(snip)

"The Republican Party can't have it both ways," Guerriero said. "They can't run a radical right campaign strategy that marginalizes gay and lesbians, and at the same put all of Log Cabin's friends out front at this convention.

"This party has a choice to make, about whether it will be the party of (former New York mayor) Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger or the party of Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan,'' he said.