Kyle Mantyla's blog

It looks like the man responsible for 1988’s infamous Willie Horton ad is back and has his sights set on Barack Obama:

Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama's relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.

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Brown's new ad focuses on a 2001 vote by Obama in the Illinois Senate to oppose a bill that would have expanded the use of the death penalty if the perpetrator of a crime belonged to a gang. The links between Obama's vote on that issue and the deaths of three Chicago resident's are indirect and tenuous, as is the further connection the ad draws between the issue of Obama's position on the death penalty and the issue of international terrorism.

Time reports that the ads will be funded by a PAC called the National Campaign Fund “which had $14,027 in the bank at the end of March,” which probably explains why Brown is focused on creating the “most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever” and hoping to gin up free media coverage to make up for the ad’s lack of funding, much like Mike Huckabee did, or at least tried to do, with his campaign ads (it is worth noting that Ari Berman of the "The Nation" reports that Brown's efforts are being "run by Bruce Hawkins, a former field organizer for Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson who recently worked for Mike Huckabee in Iowa.")

And speaking of free advertising, it looks like a pastor in South Carolina is trying make a name for himself by suggesting that Obama might secretly be Muslim:

Pastor Roger Byrd of Jonesville Church of God put the sign up which reads "Obama Osama humm are they brothers?"

Pastor Byrd says the sign is not meant to be racial or political but rather to make people think. "His name is so close to Osama, I have a feeling he might be Islamic therefore he doesn't recognize Christ," Pastor Byrd said.

Of course the ad is not political and was merely designed to make people think … that Obama is a Muslim and possible a terrorist.

Alan Keyes has officially left the Republican Party: "Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes announced Tuesday night that he has left the GOP and is considering joining the Constitution Party. Keyes, who also ran as a Republican to challenge Barack Obama's U.S. Senate bid in Illinois in 2004, says he is talking with leaders and rank-and-file members of the Constitution Party."

Yesterday we wrote a post about various Religious Right figures blasting the “Compassion Forum” that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama participated in over the weekend. Among those most bitter about the event was the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins who dismissed the entire thing as a sham mainly because he wasn’t invited to take part:

[O]rganizations like FRC, which have historically addressed faith issues, were not invited to participate or even submit questions to the candidates. Instead, the event's radical board, which included pro-abortion and homosexual advocates, used the forum as an opportunity to chip away at the traditional agenda of the faith-based community.

Well, as it turns out, the folks over at Faith in Public Life, who organized and co-sponsored the event, have something to say about that:

Perkins claimed that he was not invited to the Forum. In fact, Perkins was invited to attend the Forum AND the VIP reception for faith leaders held beforehand. He never responded to the invitation.

So much for that complaint.

But while we are rehashing old blog posts, we may as well note that the other part of that post dealt with the fact that John McCain subbed the event entirely and the fact that nobody on the Right seems too upset about it. In fact, someone from McCain’s religious outreach team reached out to the Brody File to spread the word that McCain’s faith is “extremely private” and that he won’t be talking about it. 

Needless to say, that sort of attitude isn’t going over too well with the Right:

Pastor Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council says not much is known about McCain's personal faith, except that he was raised in a family that believed religion was to be kept private. But Schenck contends that does not comport with the beliefs, customs and practices of evangelicals.

"We live with a mandate to preach the gospel, to unashamedly testify what Christ has done in our lives, to generously share that information with others," says Schenck. "... And John McCain has yet to give that kind of public testimony, and it's undermining the confidence of evangelicals in John McCain."

Schenck believes McCain's reluctance to talk more in-depth about his faith is not a good thing for him, his support base, or the country.

McCain’s faith may be private, but if he wants to win over the Religious Right, he’d better start offering up some public testimony, because that is what they want to hear.

But McCain had better not be too open about his faith because Schenck will just start criticizing it as “woefully deficient” and saying that it shows that he has "no real moral philosophy."  Oh wait, no he won’t – he reserves that sort of criticism for Democrats.

The Virginian-Pilot reports that donations to Pat Robertson's CBN were down this year: "CBN had ridden an eight-year wave of giving growth, with double-digit percent increases in some years. [CBN] said the lack of major natural disasters in 2006 and 2007 drove down disaster relief donations. Previous years had seen heavy donations after Hurricane Katrina, hurricanes in Florida, and the Indian Ocean tsunamis."

When Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agreed to participate in a “Compassion Forum” over the weekend to “discuss how their faith and moral convictions bear on their positions on … important issues,” you’d think that the Religious Right would be elated and that they’d be criticizing John McCain for blowing off the event entirely, especially since they are constantly claiming that it is imperative for politicians “to bring their religiously-informed moral values to bear in election campaigns and public policy decisions.”

You’d be wrong:

Mike Huckabee launched a new PAC today: "The PAC website launched today along with Huckabee's announcement will feature candidates that Huckabee is supporting, help raise money for candidates who share the same convictions as Huckabee, and allow supporters to post ideas and continue to be a part of Huckabee's national network."

Alan Keyes wants the world to pay attention to the fact that he's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore and so he's leaving the GOP for good: "A life-long Republican who has increasingly cited the party's failure to match conservative rhetoric with actual performance in the political arena, Keyes said he will reveal his reasons for departing the GOP at a press conference scheduled for 8:30 pm ET, at the Best Western Genetti Inn in Hazleton, PA."

Just last week we were fondly reminiscing about the battle that raged for several weeks back in 2006 between Dick Armey and James Dobson that, in many ways, embodied the tensions that existed, and continue to exist, between the economic and social conservative wings of the Republican base.

While that particular clash eventually subsided, the underlying issues did not go away and they seem to have resurfaced in recent weeks, again thanks to Armey's seemingly unprovoked attack on the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins over the latter's suggestion that John McCain ought to announce that he will appoint a "family czar" in order to appease the so-called "Values Voters" FRC and the like claim to represent.

Not surprisingly, Armey thinks the idea is idiotic and is not shy about saying so:

Think about that for a moment: A federal bureaucrat to oversee families. I'm sure Perkins would find a way to claim he's just there to give America's families a helping hand, that he's promoting our country's precious faith and values. But as Ronald Reagan said, the most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the government. I'm here to help." If there's anything our families don't need, it is Washington mucking around in their lives. Could anyone imagine a less conservative idea?

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There are all sorts of problems with Perkins' notion, but the biggest one right now is that no one even knows for sure what a family czar would actually do.  Every time Perkins has brought it up, he's brushed quickly over the topic, as if he doesn't want to discuss what it means. That's probably because it is a political stunt and not a serious policy idea.

Armey goes on to basically say that Perkins and his allies are power hungry and that he’s not even sure that Perkins ought to be claiming to be a conservative and cites Perkins’ support of Mike Huckabee as evidence:

[Perkins threw] his support behind Mike Huckabee, a candidate whose conservative credentials were anything but solid. By supporting a politician who governed in large part by taxing, regulating, and moralizing, he made his own declarations of conservatism subject to doubt.

It is not everyday that we come to the defense of Tony Perkins but in this case, it is simply untrue that Perkins ever supported Huckabee.  In fact, Perkins’ repeatedly pledged neutrality on the GOP primary race, though there was plenty of speculation that he preferred Mitt Romney, and his failure to back Huckabee was a constant source of irritation to the Huckabee campaign.

For his part, Perkins himself doesn’t seem particularly fazed by Armey’s attack, dismissing him as “grumpy” and saying that Armey’s “disregard for the importance of strong families is shocking.”    

It is safe to say that the relationship between Armey and the Religious Right has undergone something of a transformation since he left office.  His relationship with the FRC seems especially strained and it is difficult to imagine that they’ll ever be able to get back to the good old days when Armey “met with us every single week. His staff is available to us when we go there, so it has been a close relationship. Over the years he has been the defender of the family."

Gary Bauer does not want to see John McCain pick Condoleezza Rice and holds out hope that he'll pick Fred Thompson instead: "[He] certainly has a lot of experience here in Washington, DC, and is also generally well-thought-of by conservatives. [He] comes from a border state, and those states are likely to be very important during what could be the third very close presidential election in a row. So, I hope that Senator McCain is considering former Senator Fred Thompson among many other possibilities around the country."

Don Swarthout, President of Christians Reviving America's Values announced the launching of a new project called Patriotic Pastors, not to be confused with the "Patriot Pastors," which bills itself as an opportunity for pastors to "come together and fight today's cultural wars in America." Their motto: "We have a Right to Expect a Government Based upon the Principles of God, Not Upon the Lies of the Devil."