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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."

Mike Huckabee’s first-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucus was a victory for the Religious Right, after the combined efforts of a number of lesser-known right-wing figures eager to nominate one of their own. But while James Dobson and Richard Land issued cautious statements endorsing the victory if not the candidate, other national religious-right activists remained aloof, maintaining that Huckabee jeopardizes the vaunted right-wing coalition by alienating some of its partners, especially allies on the economic Right.

“I'm still skeptical that Mike Huckabee is the right man to speak for them because of his views on economics and foreign policy,” said Gary Bauer. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said Huckabee supporters “overlooked the fact he was not attractive to other members of the conservative coalition, and they said they don't care about us, and we don't care about them."

Indeed, these prominent religious-right activists are echoing people like Patrick Toomey of the Club for Growth, who called Huckabee the “John Edwards of the Republican Party,” FreedomWorks' Dick Armey ("Huckabee undermines the GOP's longstanding unity between its traditional and economic wings"), or American Enterprise Institute Vice President Harry Olsen. Toomey’s Club has done the most to convince Republicans of Huckabee’s alleged tax-hiking heresy, running anti-Huckabee ads heavily in Iowa since the summer.

Huckabee himself has played up this reputation as a populist, deriding the “Club for Greed” and talking about “the growing angst in the middle class.”

While many pundits seem to have accepted this presentation, it’s important to separate style from substance: When it comes to economic policy, Huckabee has arguably been running to the right of any of his major opponents.

Formerly of Committee for Justice and Citizens for Sound Economy, to EU ambassador.

It took James Dobson of Focus on the Family weeks to finally fight back against former Congressman Dick Armey’s attacks on him – but it only took Armey one day to respond.  

For some time now, Armey has been leveling allegations that “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies” who rely on “demagoguery” to manipulate the “intellectually lazy” and accusations that Dobson is a power-hungry egomaniac, to which Dobson finally replied by calling Armey a sell out for working with the ACLU and dismissing him has a non-entity who is merely seeking to make a name for himself.

This time around, Armey wasted no time in attacking Dobson, belittling him for insinuating last year that the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants was gay

Having read Jim Dobson’s latest lecture, I feel a little bit like SpongeBob SquarePants: maligned and misunderstood. But it would be unfair, I think, to suggest that SpongeBob has become bitter over his experience with Jim Dobson; he seems to have moved on.

Frankly, though, I don’t understand why Jim Dobson always feels the need to justify himself in such great detail. If he believes that Dick Armey is the only person who thinks he is a bully, it should be of little concern to him. On some issues, regarding interactions between us, his recollections are clearly different than mine. It seems, therefore, that Jim Dobson is no more willing to believe himself a bully than I am able to believe he is a gentle soul.

Armey then recounts several instances where Dobson has threatened the Republican Party with electoral repercussions if it did not deliver on the so-called “values voters” agenda before laying into him for trying to use the GOP to push his right-wing agenda

For weeks, former Congressman Dick Armey and Focus on the Family have been publicly bickering, but all the while FOF chairman James Dobson has refused to respond personally, instead choosing to let proxies defend him and attack Armey. 

Those days are now over. 

Apparently, Dobson could no longer tolerate Armey’s allegations that “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies” who rely on “demagoguery” to manipulate the “intellectually lazy” and accusations that Dobson is a power-hungry egomaniac, so he a penned a lengthy reply and published it, not surprisingly, on the Fox News website.

In a piece entitled “Mr. Armey, You've Become a Bitter Man,” Dobson accuses Armey of making up or imagining past slights and intentionally distorting Dobson’s record and positions.  On and on Dobson goes, defending his work and his influence within the Republican Party before chalking Armey’s dislike of him up to bitterness over Dobson’s support for Armey’s opponent in a race for House Majority Leader

I supported my close friend and hunting buddy, Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., because I thought he was more committed to conservative ideals, especially the sanctity of human life. Armey is apparently still ticked about that. At least in this instance, Armey has his facts right. I didn’t “orchestrate” anything, however, since it is impossible for an outsider to engineer any internal congressional matter. I did let my preference be known. I make no apology for that, but Mr. Armey still appears to resent me for it.

Finally, Dobson insinuates that Armey has sold out by working with the ACLU on privacy issues before all but dismissing him has a non-entity who is merely seeking to make a name for himself

Believe it or not, I don’t spend my time trying to figure out what Dick Armey is doing and really don’t care very much one way or the other.

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Either Dick Armey has forgotten most of what I said, or he has become a very bitter man. Or maybe there is another possibility. He could be trying to reposition himself as an erstwhile Republican leader by discrediting the Religious Right, hoping to step into the vacuum after the upcoming election.

Come to think of it, that may explain everything.

With just a week to go before the election, Armey and Dobson couldn’t have picked a better time to air their dirty laundry in public and engage in a nasty ideological battle over which part of the Republican base - the anti-government tax-breaks-for-the-wealthy crowd or the anti-abortion gay-bashers – will attain the greatest influence over the party.

As we have chronicled here over the past few weeks, former Congressman Dick Armey and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson are having something of a public spat.

First, Armey said “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies,” and then Focus on the Family responded by proxy by having a few members of Congress come to his defense and trash Armey.

Then Armey replied by saying that Dobson was primarily “interested in political power” – and now Focus on the Family has enlisted another member of Congress to strike back

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, is criticizing former House Majority Leader Dick Armey for his recent attack on Focus on the Family Chairman Dr. James Dobson.

"Since the advent of the Reagan administration, the governing majority in this country has been comprised of Americans who cherish limited government, fiscal discipline, a strong national defense, and traditional moral values," said Pence, R-Ind. "Supporters and advocates of these principles include former Majority Leader Dick Armey and Dr. James Dobson. Both men enjoy the deserved esteem of millions for their adherence to principle and personal integrity. And both have the right to emphasize those aspects of our movement nearest to their hearts.

"But negative personal attacks have no place in public debate and no place in the conservative movement. It is simply wrong for the former Majority Leader to question the motives of a leader of Dr. Dobson's character and integrity. It is simply wrong to refer to millions who cherish Dr. Dobson's voice of moral clarity as a 'gang of thugs' and 'bullies.'

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council also did his part to soothe Dobson’s hurt feelings

While he served in Congress, Dick Armey co-sponsored numerous pieces of social issue legislation, like the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act and the Ten Commandments Defense Act. That is why I am now perplexed why Mr. Armey is attacking Dr. James Dobson and other social conservatives. Call me biased, but I truly believe families have no greater advocate then James Dobson and that advocacy comes from his heart with no ulterior motives. In a fundraising letter, Mr. Armey mischaracterizes Dr. Dobson's actions while meeting with lawmakers, stating Dr. Dobson is "most interested in political power." In my three years at FRC I have participated in almost every meeting Jim has had on Capitol Hill, and I have never seen even a glimpse of the man that Mr. Armey describes.

In the past, they had all been downright chummy when they get together for the yearly CPAC conference, but now that the Right is facing the prospect of a massive defeat at the polls, the tension between the wing of the Republican base represented by the small government/tax cuts groups like Armey’s FreedomWorks and the wing represented by social issue groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council is finally coming to a head - and more likely than not, the finger pointing over who is to blame has just begun.