August 2008

Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery has been, not surprisingly, unimpressed with the Democratic Party's religious outreach efforts, complaining primarily that they haven't asked people like him to be involved and saying that the party "wants the voters, but not the values" of the so-called "Values Voters" he claims to represent.

So the fact that he voiced those same criticisms in an interview with Christianity Today did not comes as much of a shock. But it is interesting that, even at this late date, many on the Right still can't seem to make up their minds regarding how they feel about John McCain, revealing once again that his choice of running-mate will make-or-break his campaign:

What objections do evangelicals raise about him as a candidate?

He's inconsistent on the abortion issue, given his view of the stem-cell research side of it. He has caused great mischief for a lot of organizations including our own who try to do issue advertising to let people know how the politicians stand during the election. We can't do that because of McCain-Feingold. Finally, the Supreme Court knocked that part of it out, but there's an increasing number of regulations that we have to deal with, so we don't appreciate that. I think that his joining the gang of 14 to take control over the Supreme Court justices was ineffective. Obviously we'd like a candidate that supports the Federal Marriage Amendment ... It's been difficult for [Dr. Dobson]. The selection of a vice president will be significant.

There are rumors that he could choose a pro-choice candidate.

I don't think he will. I hope he will not be that dumb. He's the candidate who's trying to appeal to moderates and independents. He needs somebody on the ticket who would appeal to conservatives. It'll be interesting if it's Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney seems to be a genuine convert on the marriage issue, on the abortion issue, although there are a small number of evangelicals who really despise him. Mitt Romney's statements from his own campaign against Ted Kennedy for U.S. Senate in which each vied to be more liberal, those things still reverberate.

Minnery was then asked whether Romney's Mormon faith would be a liability with the Right, to which he responded that it probably wouldn't be much of a problem because they realize that he "probably won't turn his office in the White House into a Mormon temple."  But then again, McCain's "age is a factor" and they might be uncomfortable with the prospect of having a Mormon president down the line:

There's a concern, sure. I think that would dampen some enthusiasm. I think evangelical voters are sophisticated enough to know that Mitt Romney did not seem to turn the state house in Boston into a Mormon temple and he probably won't turn his office in the White House into a Mormon temple. Republicans tend to give the next nomination to the guy who's waiting. Secondly, McCain's age is a factor ... although his mother's in her 90s.

The Sun Journal reports on a brave Maine woman who has declared that she would rather go to jail than return a book about sexuality to the public library:

A local woman said Wednesday she's prepared to go to jail rather than return a library book about sexuality that she calls "dangerous" to children.

JoAn Karkos, 64, was confined to a courtroom at 8th District Court for about an hour after she was ordered by a judge to hand over the borrowed book: "It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health."

Judge Valerie Stanfill revised her order shortly after noon, giving Karkos until the end of the week to produce the property of Lewiston Public Library. Karkos also was ordered to pay a $100 fine within a month.

Talking with reporters outside the courthouse Wednesday, Karkos said she had no intention of giving up the book she claims violates the city's obscenity ordinance. She said the library needs to change its book selection policies to conform with the city's ordinances. She called her actions "civil disobedience."

...

The book, written by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley, was published in 1993. It features frank but cartoon-like pictures of naked people in chapters on topics such as abstinence, masturbation and sexually transmitted diseases.

Championed by Planned Parenthood and criticized by conservative groups such as Concerned Women for America, the book has been sold in 25 countries and translated into 21 languages.

In her closing arguments, Karkos accused the public library of contributing to an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases by disseminating prurient information.

"Children are not meant to be sexually active," she said.

We wrote about The Call a few times before the rally on the National Mall earlier this month, but the Southern Poverty Law Center has released a fascinating new report entitled "Arming" for Armageddon that puts its activities in an entirely new light.

It turns out that The Call and its founder Lou Engle are closely aligned with a militant Christian dominionist movement called "Joel's Army" run by self-proclaimed prophet and faith-healer Todd Bentley:

Joel's Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.

...

According to Joel's Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.

...

Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: "I am thinking, 'God, why is the power of God not moving?' And He said, 'It is because you haven't kicked that women in the face.' And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face ... with your biker boot.' I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."

The atmosphere is less charged with violence at "The Call," a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 youths led by Joel's Army pastor Lou Engle and held every summer in a major American city (this year's event was scheduled for Washington, D.C. in August).

...

This March, at a "Passion for Jesus" conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance.

"I believe we're headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground," said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah.

"There's an Elijah generation that's going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion," Engle continued. "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire."

For his part, Bentley's prestige and influence are suffering at the moment, thanks to the announcement that he was divorcing his wife.

When the National Black Republican Association announced just a few weeks ago that it was going to place 50 billboards in Denver proclaiming to those attending the Democratic convention that "Martin Luther King Was A Republican" we were a bit skeptical, wondering where they were getting the money for this and, more importantly, how they planned on finding available space for the ads on such short notice. The NBRA says it has pulled it off, but the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports that the spots they secured are well away from the convention itself and the ads are unlikely to ever be seen by anybody attending:

Sarasota Republican Frances Rice may not be in Denver, but her presence is being felt. Rice, the leader of the National Black Republican Association, has dozens of billboards all around Denver proclaiming that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Rice said she wanted to do something to greet Democrats as they arrived in Denver. But the billboards have not been in prime locations near the two sports arenas where Obama and Democrats are scheduled to speak. Most of the billboards are just outside the downtown area, away from view of the convention goers.

As we noted several times recently, the Right has been anything but unclear that a pro-choice running mate for John McCain would be utterly unacceptable. But even worse than that would be a pro-choice, former Democrat like Joe Lieberman.

As we wrote earlier this week, picking Lieberman would be an unmistakable poke in the eye by McCain to the GOP's right-wing base - one that would not go unnoticed:

But Lieberman’s long history as a Democrat could make for a bizarre debate with Biden — with the two of them sharing long records supporting labor causes and abortion rights and a host of other issues that would infuriate McCain’s activist base.

In essence, said one insider, a Lieberman pick “means McCain would run a campaign without a core constituency of the Republican Party.”

Phyllis Schlafly, of the conservative Eagle Forum, was more blunt: “I think there would be a walkout on Lieberman at the convention. He’s not a Republican.”

For their part, the Family Research Council can't imagine what McCain could possibly be thinking either:

McCain would presumably pledge not to run again and Lieberman would never be the GOP nominee in 2012, thus it would be the swan song for them both. Joe Lieberman has a reasonable and thoughtful image, but his positions on abortion and homosexual marriage would mark a major break for the GOP. It's hard to imagine a more divisive step for McCain, but it would be odd at other levels. By acknowledging from day one that his administration is lame duck, by holding simultaneously the thought that he would remake American politics without touching the nature of his own party, by making his ticket focus solely on foreign policy when economic news dominates the headlines, McCain would be letting the air out of his own balloon.

Back when the Republican primary was still hot and heavy, Phyllis Schlafly told right-wing voters in New Hampshire that it was their job to “work these guys over” and pin them down on the issues important to them.

Once John McCain secured the nomination, the Right then began girding for what it expected to be a bloody fight before the convention over the party’s platform:

Conservative activists are preparing to do battle with allies of Sen. John McCain in advance of September's Republican National Convention, hoping to prevent his views on global warming, immigration, stem cell research and campaign finance from becoming enshrined in the party's official declaration of principles.

McCain has not yet signaled the changes he plans to make in the GOP platform, but many conservatives say they fear wholesale revisions could emerge as candidate McCain seeks to put his stamp on a document that currently reflects the policies and principles of President Bush.

"There is just no way that you can avoid anticipating what is going to come. Everyone is aware that McCain is different on these issues," said Jessica Echard, executive director of the conservative Eagle Forum. "We're all kind of waiting with anticipation because we just don't know how he's going to thread this needle."

But they needn’t have worried, because the McCain campaign decided to sit this one out and let them have their way:

Republicans are inviting suggestions for their party platform this year, and thousands have responded online. But when a committee meets to draft the document in Minneapolis next week, one voice will be largely absent: John McCain's.

The Republican standard-bearer is at odds with his party on such hot-button issues as global warming, immigration, campaign-finance overhaul, stem-cell research, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Many party stalwarts are also deeply skeptical when it comes to judicial nominations, given his Senate record.

Instead of fighting with party activists to form the platform around his own ideas, Sen. McCain has taken a hands-off approach.

And so they did:

Republicans on Tuesday debated election principles influenced by their conservative base as well as by presidential candidate John McCain, taking a hard line on abortion while edging toward a more moderate position on global warming.

In its platform debate, the party stuck to its call for a constitutional abortion ban despite McCain's opposition to that, and toughened already uncompromising language on the issue.

Conservatives succeeded in removing a line from a platform draft urging a reduction in abortions _ underscoring their point that abortion should be eliminated.

So why did McCain decide to take a hands-off approach this time around?  Maybe because he remembers what happened to Bob Dole back in 1996; Phyllis Schlafly certainly does: 

In recent years both parties' platforms have become less relevant: they're often written by and for the parties' bases and largely ignored by the candidates. That's what happened in 1996, when Republican candidate Bob Dole, angry at some of the language in the document, claimed he hadn't read it. Dole lost his bid for the presidency to incumbent President Bill Clinton.

Still, the platform can be a harbinger of new directions the party is likely to go, and conservatives say McCain would do well to pay attention to it.

``When we didn't do what Bob Dole wanted he just went out and said he wasn't going to pay attention to it anyway,'' said Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of the advocacy group Eagle Forum, who has been active in Republican politics since 1952. ``And we know what happened to Bob Dole.''

Earlier this month, it was announced that Bob Barr, Tom Tancredo, Alan Keyes, and Chuck Baldwin would be joining together for an anti-immigration press conference organized by the Minuteman during the Democratic Convention in an attempt to inject the issue back into the presidential campaign.

So how did it go?    

A rally by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps featuring Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr drew just a few dozen people.

Held at a Denver park a few miles away from the Democratic National Convention, the rally was more of a picnic, where even some counter-protesters shouting obscenities at the anti-illegal immigration activists failed to stir much emotion.

…

Even Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican who launched a short-lived presidential bid earlier this year largely based on his call for an immigration overhaul, showed up late to the rally wearing a golf shirt and loafers and started his remarks by quipping, "I'm like yesterday's news."

Tancredo added, though, that the public interest in immigration issues has been understated by the media and even his own political party.

"I don't care how many times people tell me this issue is no longer important, that voters don't care about it anymore, it's still out there," Tancredo said.

Maybe so, but many of the anti-illegal immigration activists seemed unconvinced the topic would influence this fall's campaigns.

After independent presidential candidate Alan Keyes addressed the group, he was surrounded by supporters — who asked about abortion.

Minutemen organizers insisted the rally was a success, and that the immigration debate hasn't faded.

The reason nobody showed up, said Minuteman President Chris Simcox, was because the media, the Republicans, and the Democrats are colluding to keep the issue out of the campaign and away from the public eye. But Simcox is undaunted:

"This is a national movement," said Minuteman President Chris Simcox, who said membership was either holding steady or increasing across the country. "This is just the beginning."

Once upon a time, Janet Folger declared that the only hope Christians had of not being rounded up and sent off to prison was to support Mike Huckabee.  It was that sort of passion that landed her a position as co-chair of Mike Huckabee’s Faith and Values Coalition, whom she had anointed the “David among Jesse’s sons” after the Values Voter Debate she organized back in 2007.

In essence, God had chosen Huckabee and it was Folger’s job to make it clear that those with firm Christian principles must refuse to support anyone else:

There are sheep, and there are shepherds. Sheep follow the pundits, the polls, political expediency and promised perks. Shepherds follow principle. Gov. Mike Huckabee is such a man. So are those who stand on principle with him.

So wedded to Huckabee was Folger that she even started a front-group that ran ads against both Mitt Romney and John McCain:

Senator John McCain favors forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research, which the National Right to Life Committee says: "requires killing human embryos."

McCain violated our Free Speech rights with the notorious McCain-Feingold Act, and personally sued Wisconsin Right to Life for communicating with their members prior to an election.

John McCain is one of only seven Republican senators who voted against the Marriage Protection Amendment supported by President Bush.

…

John McCain:  Against protecting life.  Against protecting free speech.  Against protecting marriage.

But that was then.  Once God’s candidate failed to secure the nomination, Folger changed her tune, declaring it imperative that those with firm Christian principles now support John McCain. 

Folger was blasted by Gordon Klingenschmitt for selling-out in the pages of WorldNetDaily, but that obviously didn’t silence her, as she has returned to the pages of WND - this time to blast WND founder Joseph Farah for his own staunch refusal to support McCain, beseeching him to put aside his own principles for the greater good:

Here's the bottom line: If McCain is elected, we WILL get the judges we need to bring this slaughter to an end. All of our efforts and all of our labors that have taken us this far will have been worth it. If Obama is elected, we will not only see the court stacked against us with life-long appointments, we will lose every single advance we have ever made in every state, city and county.

You want to protest? Get a sign and march. We're out of time. Besides that, I'm sick of marching – I want to win: I want to restore protection to children in my lifetime.

I've given my life to the pro-life movement, and I don't have another life to give it. Neither do the 50 million children whose lives were stolen from them. If we don't take what may be our last chance, I don't believe we're going to see another one. If we choose protest over influence, Obama will not only make sure that another 50 million children lose their lives, but he'll make sure we won't recognize what's left of our nation when he's through with it.

…

I urge you to choose life, that we and our children may live. That choice is John McCain. Any other choice will be lethal … literally.

In the course of six months, Folger has gone from a militantly principled Huckabee activist who was convinced that he was God’s chosen candidate to a vocal supporter of John McCain, whom she was recently proclaiming was against protecting life, free speech, and marriage and therefore utterly unacceptable.

Christianity Today sat down with Marlys Popma, president of Iowa's Right to Life Committee, former deputy national political director for Gary Bauer’s 2000 presidential campaign, and current Evangelical outreach coordinator for John McCain.  During the discussion, Popma suggests that McCain’s appearance at the Saddleback faith forum was such a success that it’s actually made it less necessary for the campaign to openly court the Right:  

McCain just spoke at Rick Warren's forum, he met with Billy and Franklin Graham, and he met with evangelicals in Ohio. What is the campaign doing to reach out to evangelicals, other than these meetings?

Those meetings are less important than after Saddleback, but they were still important. It's very important that we touch leadership in groups or one at a time. We plan to make a visit with leadership in priority states. We also send regular e-mails to the individuals whom we have identified in our group. We recently put out a piece on John's faith. It's mostly getting John McCain's conservative message out to the grassroots.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the campaign is letting up.  In fact, Popma reports that whenever she meets with right-wing activists, the one issue she makes sure to drive home is judges:

When you talk to evangelicals about voting for John McCain, what's your pitch?

The first thing I talk about is judges. We need judges who believe in the original intent of the Constitution and show great jurisprudence, who do not legislate from the bench and are constructionists. We are one judge away from the reversal of Roe v. Wade. There are many other points: that John McCain has had a 24-, 25-year pro-life message. He stands for marriage between one man and one woman. He has a great compassion for individuals as a whole, not only in this country, but also abroad. He and his wife are extremely philanthropic. Cindy is involved with HALO and Operation Smile. I just think that as a team, Sen. McCain and his wife, Cindy, reach the heart of what an evangelical Christian is.

If McCain and his wife really do “reach the heart of what an evangelical Christian is,” that must come as a surprise to Rob Schenck, who just announced that McCain is not an Evangelical at all.  

But despite seemingly having the herculean task of selling McCain to the Religious Right, to hear Popma tell it, her job couldn’t be easier because McCain is the total right-wing package: 

We understand on this campaign that there are essentially two groups in which we look for evangelicals. One is what I call "movement conservatives." Those are individuals who have for years been working for the unborn and working hard to make sure that the definition of marriage is between one man and one woman. There is also a young emerging group of people who have broadened their scope. They haven't neglected marriage and life issues, but they've broadened them into a concern about global poverty and making sure the quality of life for individuals is one that a human expects and deserves.

The exciting thing about John McCain is that he hits on all cylinders. There's not any one of the things that evangelicals would be looking for — creation care, all of them — that John McCain has had in his agenda for years.

The AP reports that a ballot initiative preventing “gays and lesbians from becoming foster or adoptive parents was cleared Monday to appear on this fall's ballot in Arkansas”:

The measure would prohibit unmarried couples living together from fostering or adopting children, and Arkansas doesn't allow gays to marry or recognize gay marriages conducted elsewhere.

…

"Arkansas needs to affirm the importance of married mothers and fathers," Family Council President Jerry Cox said. "We need to publicly affirm the gold standard of rearing children whenever we can. The state standard should be as close to that gold standard of married mom and dad homes as possible."

You’d think that banning willing gays and lesbians from becoming foster or adoptive parents would only end up shrinking the pool of those willing to raise these children in need, but you’d be wrong – according to the Family Council Action Committee, putting this on the ballot will amazingly result in even more foster and adoptive parents:

[T]he campaign to pass this act is designed to increase the number of families willing to adopt or serve as foster parents. By circulating petitions in churches and elsewhere, we will spend the next several months highlighting the need for more foster and adoptive homes. We’ve published a book entitled, Adoption and Foster Care in Arkansas. Volunteers in this campaign will not only be circulating petitions, but they will be encouraging families to consider adopting a child or becoming a foster parent. Overall, we expect this effort to increase the number of foster care and adoptive homes in Arkansas.

Presumably, the Family Council thinks that “traditional” couples will suddenly start clamoring to take these children once they’ve ensured that they gays can’t have them.  And, if not, it’s just as well that the kids remain safely in the care of the state rather than being “used to promote the social or political agenda of any special interest group.” 

 In short, the effort nails the trifecta:

This act protects the welfare of children, it blunts a homosexual agenda, and it encourages more people to adopt children or serve as foster parents. That’s what this act does. Anyone who tries to tell you anything less isn’t telling the whole story.

Ezra Klein predicts that John McCain will choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate and explains his reasoning:

For the Republicans, however, 2008 can't be [about] mobilization. Their half is too small. Their brand is too damaged. And they recognized that when they chose John McCain -- who's not a base mobilizing evangelical conservative anyway -- as their nominee … [Lieberman] lets McCain telegraph an ideological ambiguity and shift towards a policy agenda that's about process, about "reaching across party lines and getting things done," rather than about sops to the conservative base.

That may very well be true, but for this strategy to work one has to assume that the McCain camp would be willing to sacrifice nearly the entire Religious Right base in an effort to win support of moderates and independents because, as the Right has made abundantly clear, their now tepid support for McCain hinges almost entirely on his choice of running mate.  

Just last week, we were noting how the Right was nearly unanimous in their opposition to Lieberman and that, while they were just starting to warm up to McCain, their efforts at mobilizing their grassroots activists on his behalf came to a screeching halt when he suggested that he was open to the idea of naming a pro-choice running mate.  

Right-wing activists have been battling one another over whom best fills the McCain campaign’s need to appease the base for weeks now, a battle that continues even to this day:

Among those doing some soul-searching this week is Betty Kanavel, who lives in the tiny Monroe County town of Ida and will vote for no one who isn't anti-abortion. She would like McCain to pick Mike Huckabee, the charismatic preacher and former Arkansas governor who finished third in Michigan's primary.

The 56-year-old Kanavel, who works part-time at her church, also is concerned over Romney's religion.

"I probably shouldn't go there, but I will anyway: The Mormon religion is totally not the Bible," Kanavel said, adding: "It's very hard, but if he's the choice, OK. He is a good man."

But this is a debate that has raged over Mike Huckabee vs. Mitt Romney and is rooted in the fact that both are, at least nominally, pro-life.  Lieberman, for all his faults, is ostensibly pro-choice - a fact that will not be easily glossed over by the Religious Right: 

Let us be clear on this. Our values and our respect for the Constitution make clear that women must have the right to choose—and we will continue to fight for that right

When McCain floated the idea of a pro-choice running mate a few weeks ago, the Right went completely off the rails and leaders like Richard Land have been taking every opportunity to make absolutely clear just what such a decision would mean to McCain's campaign: 

If he picks a pro-life running mate, it will really cement evangelical support. If he picks a pro-choice running mate it will give oxygen to all those doubts, and deflate the momentum that has been building.

As James Dobson explained last month when he announced that he was changing his position from “never” to “maybe” on McCain, his support hinged in large part on McCain’s choice of running mate:

I don't even know who his vice-presidential candidate will be. You know he could very well choose a pro-abortion candidate and it would not be unlike him to do that because he seems to enjoy a frustrating conservatives on occasions. But as of this moment, I have to take into account the fact that Senator John McCain has voted pro-life

consistently and that's a fact.

In case that wasn’t clear enough, FOF’s Tom Minnery recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that Dobson is essentially waiting to see who McCain picks before officially endorsing him:

"Admittedly, for a lot of us, McCain is an acquired taste," said Tom Minnery, who leads the government and public policy division for Focus on the Family.

But if McCain chooses a strong social conservative for his running mate, Focus on the Family's leader, James Dobson - whose conservative radio broadcasts are heard by 200 million people worldwide - could endorse him.

"We'll wait to see who his vice president is before embracing him," Minnery said.

If the McCain campaign decides that a pro-choice running mate is what the campaign needs, it’ll be because it has concluded that he can with without the Right or, more likely, that the Right will put aside its principles because they have no alternative but to support the campaign regardless of his running mate.  But the Right is in no mood to be insulted in this manner.  As it stands now, McCain’s support from the right-wing base is tenuous at best and will likely collapse completely were he to fill out his ticket with a pro-choice candidate.

As Dobson explained it, McCain has a history of going “out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes” of the Religious Right – and choosing a pro-choice running mate would be the ultimate poke in the eye to the Right; one that would make it nearly impossible for them to support him.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that former Rep- Tom DeLay might end up being cleared of money-laundering charges merely because they were dealing with checks, not cash:

Money-laundering charges against former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two indicted co-conspirators may be dismissed because the 2002 campaign finance case involved checks and not cash, a lawyer for DeLay said Sunday night.

"We win," said Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lawyer, "because there's nothing but checks in the case."

The state's 3rd Court of Appeals on Friday actually upheld the money-laundering indictments against DeLay's two campaign associates, John Colyandro of Austin and Jim Ellis of Washington.

But the ruling contained a silver lining for the trio's lawyers because it concluded that the state's money-laundering statute — written in 1993 to combat illicit drug activity by focusing on the cash in the criminal transactions — did not apply to checks at the time DeLay is accused of laundering corporate money into campaign donations. The Legislature changed the law in 2005 to include checks.

...

DeGuerin said he would take the appellate court's opinion back to Pat Priest, the trial judge in San Antonio, who has dismissed the check argument previously. Armed with the opinion, however, DeGuerin said he expects Priest to reconsider DeLay's motion to dismiss the charges because only checks — not cash — were involved in the transactions.

Following the announcement that Barack Obama had chosen Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, the Right swung into action, with FRC Action quickly releasing a “fact sheet on [the] family record of Senator Joe Biden” while others carefully crafted statements of their own and began plotting strategy. 

Within hours, a new on-line movement touting itself “Catholics Against Joe Biden” appeared on the scene, brought to you by the same people behind the “Catholics Against Rudy” effort during the GOP primary.  Of course, that effort gained attention because the organizers were traditionally Republican supporters proclaiming a GOP candidate unacceptable whereas this new effort is standard partisan criticism cloaked in religious terms.

Apparently Catholics are not only universally opposed, but outright offended, by Obama’s decision to choose Biden - at least judging by the press release from Fidelis, another self-appointed political organization that claims to speak for Catholics:

Fidelis President Brian Burch commented, “Barack Obama has re-opened a wound among American Catholics by picking a pro-abortion Catholic politician. The American bishops have made clear that Catholic political leaders must defend the dignity of every human person, including the unborn.  Sadly, Joe Biden’s tenure in the United States Senate has been marked by steadfast support for legal abortion.”

…

“Now everywhere Biden campaigns, we’ll have this question of whether a pro-abortion Catholic can receive Communion. Senator Biden is an unrepentant supporter of abortion in direct opposition to the Church he claims as his own. Selecting a pro-abortion Catholic is a slap in the face to Catholic voters,” said Burch.

But both Fidelis and Catholics Against Joe Biden were outdone by Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission who made his displeasure known by blasting Obama as a “fake Christian” and Biden as a “fake Catholic”:  

"Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden sends a clear message, true Christians need not apply in the Democratic Party," said Dr. Gary Cass, Chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. "Instead of picking a true Christian, Obama, a fake evangelical, has selected Biden, a fake Catholic.”

 The CADC proclaims its mission is to “advance religious liberty for Christians by protecting Christians from defamation, discrimination, and bigotry from any and all sources,” but that apparently doesn’t apply to those it considers “fake” Christians such as Obama and Biden.  It might seem odd that an organization founded to protect Christians from defamation would among the most frequently and vocally defaming Obama’s faith, but only if you don’t understand that Cass’s mission is reserved solely for those he deems “true Christians” who have proven their faith via “actions and [holding] the beliefs personified by all of us who proclaim the name of Jesus Christ as Savior: the need to be re-born in Christ and the affirmation of historic Christianity, having a demonstrable and proven record of support for traditional Christian morality.”

After years of monitoring the Religious Right, I tend to shrug when I see things like this from Focus on the Family announcing that they are offering “an online video series to keep you up to date on the election” because, frankly, I know what they are going to say:  Republican=good, Democrat=bad. 

And this inaugural video turned out to be exactly as predicted, with Stuart “Pray for Rain” Shepard discussing recent developments in the presidential race with FOF Vice President Tom Minnery.  Minnery beamed about the recent Saddleback faith forum hosted by Rick Warren, noting with delight that for all of Warren’s talk about how he was going to “lead these Neanderthal conservatives into the light of liberal Christianity” by expanding the evangelical agenda to include issues like climate change and poverty, he didn’t actually ask about those issues during the forum, instead focusing on core right-wing issues like marriage and abortion.  Minnery then discussed the need for McCain to pick a pro-life running mate and speculated that “gay activist groups” have greatly increased their influence within the Democratic Party.  It is all pretty standard right-wing fare.

But then the discussion turns to the topic of why the Democrats chose Denver, CO to host this year’s convention and it gets weird.  After Minnery makes some comments about Democrats seeking to be competitive in the Western US, Shepard asks about (seemingly false) reports that efforts are underway in the city to rid the downtown area of the homeless before the start of the convention, at which point Minnery goes off the rails, likening it to Communist China and expressing disbelief that there are still homeless people in Denver, thus apparently proving that Democrats can’t govern:

Shepard: Tom, people have been sending me news clippings about the convention offering special offers for homeless people to try and get them out of the downtown area, either out to a park or to a movie or something.  I just read recently they’re offering free haircuts to street people.  When you hear those stories, what do you think they illustrate?

Minnery:  They remind me of Communist China.  That’s exactly what we have been seeing in the run-up to the Olympics. Let’s make it look good.  Let’s not solve the problems, let’s just push the problems ordinary people are having out of the way. It’s been a Democrat city for a long time; the local government has been in the control of the Democrat Party, yet there are still homeless people in and around Denver.  And so that just shows that that party has not been able to solve this problem.  The homeless are still with us.

One thing that has always confused me is the Right Wing’s obsession with recounting the racist history of the Democratic Party and the anti-slavery origins of the Republican Party that inevitably seems to end right around the mid-1960s.  

For example, we wrote a report about right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton a few years back that examined a video he produced called “American History in Black and White” in which he diligently recounts the atrocities committed by early members of what was then the Democratic Party and ties them into positions held by current members of the party:

Barton claims that Democrats hailed the Dred Scott decision because it affirmed “their belief that it was proper to have slavery and hold African Americans in bondage.” He then takes it a step further, making a direct comparison between this decision and modern Democrats’ support of reproductive choice for women, claiming “Democrats have largely taken that same position in unborn human life, that an unborn human is really just disposable property to do with as one wishes. African Americans were the victims of this disposable property ideology a century and a half ago, and still are today … For over a century and a half, Democrats have wrongly argued that some human life is merely disposable personal property and black Americans have suffered most under this philosophy.”

On and on he went, until he reached the for passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, at which point his “history lesson” ended.  

This tactic continues even today – just last week the Wall Street Journal ran a piece accusing the Democratic National Committee of posting a history of the party on its website that is “so sanitized of historical reality it makes Stalin look like historian David McCullough.” Not surprisingly, the WSJ piece received prominence on the website of the National Black Republican Association, whose leader, Frances Rice, has made it her mission  to inform the world about what “Democrats have done in the past and are doing now to black people … They are keeping blacks in virtual slavery."

The obvious question raised by all of this is not why the Democrats are reluctant to discuss it, but why right-wingers who are obsessed with it never manage to explain the so-called “Southern Strategy” employed by Richard Nixon to win over traditional Southern Democrats who were angry by the party’s emerging pro-civil rights positions.  As Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips explained it:   

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

Ronald Regan’s strategist Lee Atwater was even more blunt about the reasoning behind the strategy:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

Given that, beginning in the late 1960s, the GOP made a concerted and successful to court Southern voters who had traditionally been supporters of the Democratic Party which, as the Right loves to point out, was fundamentally racist, it has been confusing to understand how those who hammer this point rationalize this obvious disconnect.  Usually, they do so by not talking about it. 

But finally someone shed some light on this question when the NBRA’s Rice explained the history of the “Southern Strategy” at a sparsely attended conference earlier this month.  You see, it was not that Nixon and the GOP were courting racist Southern voters; Nixon was really just trying to get the “fair-minded people in the South to stop discriminating against blacks”:

That strategy was designed to get the fair-minded people in the South to stop discriminating against blacks and to stop supporting a party that did not share their values.  So those fair-minded ones who migrated to the Republican Party did so.  They joined us, we did not join the racists.

If Rice's history is correct, how does she explain that both President Bush
and former RNC chair Ken Mehlman apologized for the Southern Strategy, with Mehlman admitting in 2005 that "Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."