I'm not much for sports analogies, but any athlete knows about the home field advantage. It's easier to win if you play your game, not your opponent's.

This is even more true in politics. Playing by your enemy's rules is a mug's game.

For whatever reason, conservatives and right-wing activists — the latter distinguishable from the former because they want to push past stodgy establishmentarianism into radical reactionism (such as fascism and its close relatives) — understand that he who makes the rules usually wins the fight. Whether it's the aggressive redistricting of Texas voting districts engineered by Karl Rove on behalf of Republicans, or the brutalist media activism of Fox News and other Murdoch properties like The Wall Street Journal, or hiring goons to beat up election officials during the 2000 Florida recount, right-wingers get that politics is war, no Queensbury rules. Only victory matters.