Kyle Mantyla's blog

Right-wing activists, including Phyllis Schlafly, recently gathered at the Family Research Council to plot strategy on judges, and Manuel Miranda endorses John McCain and defends his record on the issue: "Senator McCain would not need on-the-job training on the issue of federal judicial nomination, and he is a meritocrat. He is not likely to nominate a lightweight to the judiciary."

Huckabee-backer Janet Folger's front group, RoeGone.org, branches out to attack John McCain: "RoeGone.org, who earlier this week made news by exposing the liberal Romney record, including tax funded abortion on demand, today launches a new ad to expose the McCain record against life, marriage, and free speech."

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Rick Scarborough of Vision America claims to have "sent out on Friday 10 million e-mails to the 20-plus states voting, praising Huckabee and noting questions about McCain's conservatism." 10 million emails? MoveOn only claims 3.2 million members.

And by “Satan” we mean “Mitt Romney” (actually, “we” don’t mean Romney at all ... anti-Mormon nut-job Bill Keller does): "The world's leading internet evangelist has launched a new web site -- votingforsatan.com. In an attempt to educate people on what Mormons really believe, Bill Keller -- who coined the infamous phrase, 'vote for Romney is a vote for Satan' -- now wants to hold high-profile Christians accountable for endorsing Romney's bid for the presidency. 'This web site is not set up to tell people who they ought to vote for,' says Keller. 'It's designed to educate people on what members of the Mormon cult really believe, and to hold Christian leaders who support Romney's bid for the White House accountable for their actions.'"

An organization called Republicans for Black Empowerment announces a press conference urging Mike Huckabee to stay in the race: "Inside-the-beltway Republicans have lost touch with the increasing seriousness with which heartland conservatives relate to the traditional values agenda," states Star Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist and conservative activist. "More and more folks are feeling personally assaulted by the meaninglessness that is gripping our culture and believe that Mike Huckabee is the only republican candidate that embodies the moral clarity of the GOP ideals. The groundswell generating support for Huckabee's candidacy understand that moral and economic health go hand in hand and should not be underestimated."

Politico reports that "Mike Huckabee has renounced the support of Common Sense Issues Inc. and has called for an investigation into its push-polling on his behalf. But that didn’t stop his campaign from accepting a $2,000 contribution from the group’s political action committee, according to Huckabee’s fourth-quarter report."

CPAC organizers have apparently grown tired of Ann Coulter's antics, says Think Progress.

With the Republican presidential campaign seemingly narrowed to a race between John McCain and Mitt Romney, one wonders what will become of Mike Huckabee’s more high-profile Religious Right backers?  While Janet Folger appears busy starting up her own anti-Romney front group, Huckabee’s other most vocal and committed supporter, Rick Scarborough, seems to have been reduced to complaining and finger-pointing:

Scarborough was scathing in his assessment of U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who picked up Rudy Giuliani’s endorsement Wednesday (and might haul in the backing of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who had supported Giuliani).

Scarborough told me: “We are left with a candidate for president who showed his disdain for the Christian Right in 2000 when he tried to salvage his candidacy by trashing Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson while campaigning in South Carolina. He destroyed any attempt by (Senate Majority Leader) Bill Frist to end once and for all the unconstitutional requirement of 60 senators to affirm judicial appointments by joining the Gang of 14 (senators from both parties agreeing to avoid frequent partisan wars over judges) and his McCain/Feingold (campaign finance) bill was a direct assault on grassroots activism while McCain-Kennedy (an immigration act) revealed his true convictions about amnesty. Oddly enough, the ‘establishment’ candidate once threatened to leave the party he now will likely represent.”

Scarborough took issue with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney too, saying Romney “was wrong on every pro-family issue his entire career until he decided to run for the Republican nomination.”   

Scarborough rued: “The most visible Christian leaders in our movement decided that Huckabee was ‘unelectable,’ which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am angered and frustrated by that reality, but secure in God’s sovereignty.”

It has been a tough campaign for Scarborough, who has been struggling from the very beginning to figure out how best to position himself in order to maximize his influence and visibility.  Initially, Scarborough sounded like he was supporting Sam Brownback and announced that he’d be launching a “70 Weeks to Save America” crusade to mobilize “100,000 Values Voters, 10,000 key leaders, 5,000 Patriot Pastors and 5,000 women” – an effort that almost immediately put the organization deep in debt. 

Over the coming months, he went on to suggest that none of the top-tier candidates was going to be acceptable to the GOP’s Religious Right base and that they should consider leaving the party all together.  But then, when others began suggesting the same thing, Scarborough flip-flopped and told them to “grow up,” hold their noses, and support the Republican nominee for the sake of judges … only to flip-flop back again and say that his political work was not about winning elections but “honoring Christ.” 

He then got involved with the Values Voter Debate, where Mike Huckabee firmly established himself as the “David among Jesse’s sons" and soon he was serving on Huckabee’s Faith and Family Values Coalition and hard to work organizing pro-Huckabee get-out-the-vote rallies and joining the candidate at fundraisers.

But now that Huckabee’s campaign seems to be winding down, Scarborough is on the verge of being left without a candidate or a coherent set of principles on which to move forward.  What, oh what, is a Christocrat to do?

There is nothing that seems to anger the Religious Right quite like discussions of faith within the political sphere that do not coincide with their own right-wing agenda.  For example, Ryan Anderson of First Things attacked Catholics United for taking “its favored policy and baptize it in the name of the church” regarding the debate over SCHIP while Religious Right leaders were up-in-arms and accusing Democrats of “[hijacking] the language of faith in order to hide the truth about their real agenda” and confuse Values Voters.  Barack Obama’s Christian faith, in particular, has come in for intense denunciation, being labeled “woefully deficient” while his church membership “suggests a lack of judgment.”   

And now American Life League president Judie Brown has decided to add her voice to the chorus of those who think religion is solely the property of the Right:  

"It is one thing to profess to be a believing Christian, and another to, by your actions, either confirm that you are indeed a believing Christian, or that you are using your so-called Christianity for the purpose of political gain," says Brown.

Brown says that in many cases -- such as Obama's and Clinton's -- she sees politicians "using their professed Christianity for political ends, without even recognizing what it means to be a Christian, and I find that rather sad."

Rather sad, indeed.

Focus on the Family's CitizenLink gloats over Rudy Giuliani's departure, saying "Dr. Dobson was right ... Dr. Dobson has never been someone who takes stands or issues statements based on polls. He just doesn't put a lot of stock in them — particularly when they are trying to predict who is going to win a presidential election that at the time was more than a year away. Some people scoffed at him when he said, 'Hold on, there's a lot of campaigning still to do.' But time has proven him right."