Posts on Ken Blackwell

I've been having a bit of difficulty putting together a post regarding what the Right has to say about their anti-gay amendment wins in Florida, California, and Arizona not because I don't know what to say about it, but because they don't seem to know what to say about it. 

As of this writing, aside from ProtectMarriage.com thanking supporters and voters and insisting that their victory in California "doesn’t discriminate or take rights away from anyone," no major Religious Right groups have had much to say about any of this.  Powerhouse groups like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, and the ACLJ have all been oddly silent. 

In fact, the only things I've really been able to find have been Richard Land crowing that "if traditional marriage can win in California, it can win in any of the 50 states when it's put to a vote of the people" and Ken Blackwell saying if Prop 8 "hadn't passed, we would have seen a floodgate opened in terms of same-sex marriage. Now, we've closed that gate." 

Of course, you can always count on Matt Barber to having something to say about it and he does not disappoint by providing his unique spin which suggests that Barack Obama's historic victory last night means he is now obligated to embrace the Right's anti-gay agenda:  

The passage of these three state constitutional amendments is an indicator that Obama, who has pledged full support for every single demand of extremist homosexual pressure groups, must recalibrate his far-left positions on these and other social issues if he wishes to be an effective leader ... The institution of legitimate marriage is a cornerstone of any healthy society. If you introduce counterfeit money into society, it devalues the dollar. By the same token, if you introduce counterfeit "gay marriage" into society, it devalues the institution of natural marriage. President-elect Obama owes his African-American supporters and the rest of America assurances that he will work to protect the cornerstone institution of legitimate marriage and reject the free-speech killing, religious liberties chilling agenda of the radical homosexual lobby."

The Associated Press reports that Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ken Blackwell, Jerome Corsi, and others all make an appearance in a new anti-Obama DVD produced by Citizens United that is set to be included with newspapers in swing states just before the election:

Readers of Ohio's three largest newspapers, along with papers in Florida and Nevada, are finding an anti-Barack Obama DVD in editions this week.

Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington, plans to release a 95-minute film in the five swing-state publications to highlight Obama's record on abortion rights, foreign policy and his past associations, including his relationship with former pastor Rev. Jermiah Wright. The group said it planned to spend more than $1 million to distribute about 1.25 million copies of "Hype: The Obama Effect."

"We think it's a truthful attack. People can take it anyway they want," said David Bossie, Citizens United's president.

Readers of The Columbus Dispatch received their copy Tuesday. The Cincinnati Enquirer, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and the Las Vegas Review-Journal are scheduled to receive them in coming days.

The film raises questions about Obama's political base in Chicago and questions the media's reporting on Obama.

Among those interviewed are conservative columnist Robert Novak, former Clinton strategist-turned-pundit Dick Morris and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and discredited Obama critic Jerome Corsi also give interviews.

For the last week or so, as the economy continues to dominate the news cycle and presidential election, the Right has been lamenting that their anti-abortion, anti-gay agenda has been relegated to the back burner and wishing that they could choose right-wing moderators to run the debates.  

But since they can’t do that, they’ve decided to do the next best thing and petition Bob Schieffer, the moderator of the final debate, to make sure their issues play prominent in tonight’s debate.  Earlier this week, Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, wrote an "open letter" to Schieffer decrying Tom Brokaw's failure to work their agenda into the last debate:

Mr. Brokaw’s choice of topics for the second debate robbed the American people of what was intended to be a look into the more personal and controversial aspects of the candidates. In that debate focusing on domestic policy, there was not a single question about the Supreme Court, gun control, abortion, gay marriage or immigration. It strains credulity to assert that of the more than 1,000 questions offered to Mr. Brokaw, he could not find any that spoke to these issues.

And now the FRC has followed suit. Declaring that “no issue our nation faces is more important than the protection of innocent unborn life,” the FRC has launched a petition to try and pressure Schieffer into asking questions designed to rally so-called “values voters” behind John McCain:

The American people face many crucial issues in this year's elections, including the state of the economy, immigration, health care, the environment, and foreign policy.  The first two presidential debates this year, however, have failed to include the most pressing social issues on the minds of values voters.  We the undersigned urge you to ask questions along the lines of those listed below, which discuss the future of marriage and the sanctity of human life.  These are questions that matter to all Americans, and you have the last remaining opportunity for the American people to compare the candidates' answers as they appear together for the final presidential debate of 2008.

* Do you believe that the U.S. Constitution contains a right for homosexuals to marry?
* Would you change the traditional definition of marriage contained in the federal Defense of Marriage Act?
* Do you support the Defense of Marriage Act's provision allowing states not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states?
* Have you ever opposed any ballot initiative seeking to define marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman?
* Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's decision allowing the government to ban abortions that kill a partially born baby?
* Have you ever supported or opposed any law designed to protect the lives of babies that have survived an attempted abortion?

Moderating a debate is a great responsibility that rests on your shoulders.  We ask that you exercise that responsibility with great care to ensure that the American people have the chance to know where the candidates stand on every pressing issue. 

And just in case this effort doesn’t work out, FRC Action is doing its own part to support McCain by running anti-Obama ads in several battleground states:

Today, FRC Action PAC announced an initial $100,000 TV and radio ad campaign in key battleground states aimed at educating voters on Senator Barack Obama's promise to make the radical "Freedom of Choice Act" his top priority as President. The "Freedom of Choice Act" will overturn virtually all federal and state limitations on abortion. The ad campaign is a response to the Matthew 25 initiative, which sought to mislead voters and downplay Obama's extreme pro-abortion views. The initial TV and radio ad buy will run this week in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Michigan, with additional television commercials airing in the Washington, D.C. market. The radio ads will target Christian radio stations that earlier this year carried the Matthew 25 campaign.

John McCain’s messy break-up with televangelist Rod Parsley had the potential to hurt him most in Ohio, a swing state necessary for McCain and the place where Parsley built a network of electorally-charged “Patriot Pastors” in 2004 and 2006. Now McCain is making amends by delving deeper into the state’s Religious Right.

Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who helped Bush win there in 2004, is a close ally of Parsley; the two campaigned heavily together during Blackwell’s losing bid for governor in 2006. In an AP story today, Blackwell was critical of McCain’s ham-handed efforts to enlist the Religious Right:

"He has never identified with the evangelical and Christian movement and therefore he can, at times, misread or misinterpret certain activities in the political field of play or certain comments that are offered," said Blackwell, now at the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank. "I personally would like for John to get to the point of comfort with some of our issues and policy positions, through understanding and genuine acceptance."

Despite these warnings, Blackwell is a Republican politician at heart and is supporting McCain (who endorsed Blackwell in 2006)—he even recorded a robo-call for the Arizona senator before the Ohio GOP primary in February. But other activists are even more cagey about how much they’ll work for McCain.

In the same AP article, Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance (which broke away from the Christian Coalition when it got too soft) warned, “There’s certainly a little reservation about Mr. McCain.”

Phil Burress, a leader of Ohio’s Religious Right, has been skeptical of McCain’s judges promises and emphasized in March that McCain had a lot more sucking up to do:

Burress, who heads Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, says although he would vote for McCain in the general election, the Arizona lawmaker has thus far failed to energize the bloc Burress refers to as "values voters."

"They are not mobilized right now -- and in fact, they're just going to be sitting back waiting to hear what he has to say to try to get these people to engage in his campaign," explains Burress.

Burress contends McCain needs to apologize to evangelical Christians and values voters for the way he has treated them over the years. He says because the senator is not likely to make that apology, he must strengthen his pledge to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.

Jack Willke, the former National Right to Life leader who has been called the “grandfather” of the anti-abortion movement, also made “clear” to McCain the unhappiness of the Right, as the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

Nevertheless, Willke, like the others, is supporting McCain. But McCain is still worried enough to set up a meeting today with Burress, Wilke, Long, and others, as Jake Tapper reports.

Lori Viars, executive director of the Family First PAC … told the Dayton Daily News that her fellow conservatives "would probably hold our nose and vote for McCain."

Apparently before said mass nose-holding can transpire, this meeting was required.

With the passing of right-wing luminaries such as Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy in recent months, coupled with the aging of many of the Right’s traditional leaders, the movement itself appears to be in flux and some are getting worried about just what will become of it in the future.  Just last week, James Dobson voiced these concerns while addressing the National Religious Broadcasters Convention:

“It causes me to wonder who will be left to carry the banner when this generation of leaders is gone. The question is, will the younger generation heed the call? Who will defend the unborn child in the years to come? Who will plead for the Terri Schiavos of the world? Who’s going to fight for the institution of marriage, which is on the ropes today.”

The emerging conventional wisdom is that the Religious Right is on the verge of being replaced by a “new evangelical” movement that shares the old-guard’s opposition to gays and abortion, but also cares about issues like poverty and the environment.  The standard-bearer of this “new breed” is Mike Huckabee who, as he puts it, drinks “a different kind of Jesus juice” than the traditional leaders and routinely says things like this: 

I don’t see [the right-wing movement] going into decline. I see it going into a maturing process. I think the issues are going to broaden and force Evangelicals to expand their horizons of concerns to poverty, disease, issues of education and homelessness. These are issues that I think are going to become increasingly important along with the environment as part of an overall focus that you’re going to see from - I would use a broader term - values voters - that would include not only Evangelicals but also Catholics and conservative Jewish voters as well.

Of course, just because a bunch of young upstarts think that caring about the environment is important doesn’t mean that the old-guard has any interest in broadening their agenda.  As we noted last year, when the National Association of Evangelicals started to voice concerns about the environment and global warming, right-wing stalwarts like Dobson, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon, Gary Bauer, Rick Scarborough, and Paul Weyrich dashed off an angry letter essentially demanding that the NAE fire its own Vice President over it.

The NAE didn’t back down, but the Right didn’t give up.  Instead, they formed their own organization, the American Environmental Coalition, and now seek "to bring balance to the debate by being an alternative source of reliable information to Americans who seek the best way forward for our country.” 

Few constituencies were more surprised by Barack Obama’s win in last week’s Iowa Democratic caucus than the right-wing media—Clinton obsession has been its bread and butter for over a decade. Nevertheless, the Right is doing its best to prove it will pull no punches no matter who the Democrats nominate.

The Right has hardly refrained from attacking Obama—remember his visit to Rick Warren’s church over a year ago? Or last summer, when the National Clergy Council declared “Obama's Christianity [to be] woefully deficient”? But the last few days have seen a seeming uptick in the number of anti-Obama articles: For example, Human Events editor-at-large Terence Jeffrey warned that the Democrat is “the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.” A CNSNews piece surveyed African-American religious-right activists on the candidate, such as Rev. Clenard Childress of Blackgenocide.org, who implied that abortion is worse for blacks than was lynching, and Jesse Lee Peterson of BOND, who said, “For Barack Obama to support abortion shows a lack of love for the black community and especially for the unborn."

But the Illinois senator’s faith seems to be the most appealing target of the Right. Newsmax correspondent Ronald Kessler offers a menacing warning that Obama attends a black church whose pastor propounds the “thesis that blacks in America are oppressed.” “At the least,” writes Kessler, “Obama’s membership in [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright’s church suggests a lack of judgment and an insensitivity to views that are repugnant to the vast majority of white Americans who are not bigots.”

(In particular, Kessler objects to the “Black Value System” on the church’s website. “One can only imagine the outrage that would erupt if a white presidential candidate like Romney subscribed to something called the White Value System,” he writes. One can only imagine what Kessler would think if he knew about the Religious Right’s “Black Contract with America on Moral Values.”)

But if Kessler wants to present Obama as a radical Christian, he’s going to have a lot of competition from those on the Right who want to present Obama as a radical Muslim, a (needless to say, inaccurate) smear that continues to be distributed as an e-mail forward. Daniel Pipes (nominated by Bush to the U.S. Institute of Peace) wrote an article for David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine purportedly “confirming” the senator’s secret Muslim past.

Kessler concludes his report on Obama’s pastor with a bizarre comparison:

But media bias or not, if Obama is his party’s nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton’s furlough to help Bush win the presidency.

The 20-year-old Horton ad would hardly be the first campaign strategy to come to mind, unless Kessler were recalling the ad’s widespread reputation as a crypto-racist attack on Michael Dukakis. In that sense, comparing it to these insinuations about the black church may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The media is reporting that Tom DeLay is set to unveil his own right-wing version of MoveOn.org as he seeks to salvage his own reputation and the Republican Party’s electoral chances heading into 2008:

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has formed a new grass-roots organization that he says will help conservatives better convey their message to voters and take back control of Congress.

The Coalition for a Conservative Majority (CCM) — co-founded by Mr. DeLay, Texas Republican, and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell — will establish "chapters" in all 50 states, which will be used to lobby lawmakers, coordinate political messages and influence members of the press.

"Right now, liberals are better organized, funded and active than I have ever witnessed," Mr. DeLay said. "Our goal is to work with the talented leaders of the conservative movement to complement their efforts, using an army of activists to push for the policies and leadership conservatives are begging for."

Roll Call reports that while CCM is DeLay’s baby, Ken Blackwell is going to be doing most of the heavy lifting:

CCM, a DeLay brainchild, actually will be headed by former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R), who lost his 2006 gubernatorial bid to then-Rep. Ted Strickland (D). But DeLay is helping to establish CCM as a viable group and is in the midst of raising money for the venture and building its infrastructure.

…

CCM plans to establish several local chapters in major media markets throughout the country (a meeting of the Houston chapter, in DeLay's political backyard, is scheduled for Nov. 27). CCM particularly is targeting those media markets where left-of-center advocacy groups and 527s are operating.

Through these chapters and Blackwell's personal outreach, CCM plans to "identify, recruit, train, inspire, activate and mobilize conservative activists to take specific action on policy issues and political causes" nationwide, according to an advance copy of the group's brochure obtained by Roll Call.

Moving forward, DeLay will remain active in CCM, in particular as honorary finance chairman. DeLay has spent the past year building the foundation of the organization and preparing it for launch. Blackwell is serving as CCM's chairman.

Blackwell is a logical choice to partner with DeLay in this effort to unify the Republican Party’s economic and social conservative base since, following the failure of his own 2006 gubernatorial bid, Blackwell was embraced by both strands of the GOP’s base, securing not only a position as Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment with the socially conservative Family Research Council, but positions with the economically conservative National Taxpayers Union and Club for Growth as well.

On top of that, Blackwell shares DeLay’s gift for inflammatory, partisan rhetoric:

CCM believes it will be uniquely suited to bring together “security, economic, and cultural conservatives” by uniting them behind a common agenda committed to protecting American families from their myriad of “enemies”:

Conservatives believe that security without prosperity is fleeting and that prosperity without security is impossible. We believe the family - rather than the group or the consumer - is the basic unit of society and civilization and that government as such has a special responsibility to protect our families, and in particular our children from all enemies: foreign, domestic, or judicial.

It is good to see that DeLay has not lost his taste for demonizing and threatening the judiciary since leaving office.

Just days after the Religious Right’s B-team gathered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to question Republican candidates for president (including the ones who didn’t show up), a number of more prominent right-wing figures are convening in Tampa for the Family Impact Summit, sponsored by the Focus on the Family-affiliated Florida Family Policy Council, the Tampa-based Community Issues Council, the Family Research Council, and the Salem radio network.

Advertised topics range from “Christian Citizenship” to “Homosexual Agenda,” but the focus will no doubt be on the 2008 election, and in particular, the effort by Florida’s Right to put a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot—even though gays are already prohibited from marrying by statute.

Below is some background on the featured speakers, from Tony Perkins and Richard Land to Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell.

Ken Blackwell’s far-right campaign for Ohio governor in 2006 was structured around intensive “Patriot Pastor” church organizing, but nonetheless failed by a large margin. Since then, Blackwell has joined the ranks of right-wing activists at the Family Research Council, the Club for Growth, Ohio’s Buckeye Institute, and Townhall.com.

Now, there’s a rumor that Blackwell is eyeing a future Senate run. The next Ohio Senate election is in 2010, but the incumbent is a fellow Republican, George Voinovich. A primary challenge is not out of the question, though: Blackwell’s associates at the Club for Growth specialize in right-wing challenges to “Republicans in Name Only,” and he has a history of disagreement with Voinovich.

In the past year, the IRS has investigated some churches over whether their political advocacy exceeded their non-profit parameters in the tax code -- in which contributions are private and tax deductible – and pushed into the realm of regulated political action committees that give up some of the subsidies for charity and are required to disclose their work on behalf of candidates for office. Yesterday, reporter Michael Haverluck of Pat Robertson’s CBN looked at this complex issue, and whittled it down to its corresponding far-right talking point:

Will pastors' ability to speak to their congregations about social and moral issues erode, or will their appeals to the First Amendment protect this right?

Haverluck cited as an example the activities of World Harvest Church of Ohio, led by televangelist Rod Parsley. Parsley, along with fellow Columbus-area megachurch pastor Russell Johnson, partnered with Ken Blackwell for a series of church “policy briefings” and political rallies, encouraging pastors across the state to mobilize their members to “vote their values” – all while Blackwell was running for governor. At issue was not “speak[ing] … about social and moral issues” so much as the pastors’ apparently brazen use of their churches to campaign for a candidate. Their efforts to build a new church-based political machine are described in People For the American Way’s report on these so-called “Patriot Pastors.”

In Haverluck’s telling, Parsley just happened to bump into Blackwell a couple of times:

Though Pastor Rod Parsley invited Republican and Democratic candidates to World Harvest Church's events, only Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell showed up.

Blackwell is a conservative Christian who opposes abortion and gay marriage. His stance on these issues with Parsley motivated 56 liberal clergy to call for in an IRS investigation.

One complaint accuses Parsley of supporting Blackwell's run for governor by letting him speak at events. Another claims that Parsley planned on having Blackwell on his radio spots, a baseless allegation denied by the pastor and the politician.

It is also contested without evidence that Parsley's "Reformation Ohio" project, aiming to register 400,000 new voters, seeks only conservatives.

In fact, Parsley and Johnson hosted Blackwell as the featured guest speaker at numerous events, in which the candidate was honored with some award or endorsed explicitly from the stage. Parsley even flew Blackwell to one “Patriot Pastor” function on a church-owned plane. This campaign was only part of a broader agenda to promote Blackwell at bigger and bigger rallies featuring famous religious-right leaders, leading up to the primary election and beyond, and indeed including radio spots featuring Blackwell. The radio spots and the rallies with James Dobson never materialized, but far from being a “baseless allegation,” this plan was posted publicly on Johnson’s “Ohio Restoration Project” web site in 2005: you can read it here.

Blackwell’s lopsided loss in 2006 was certainly a major setback to Parsley’s efforts to build a “Patriot Pastor” political machine, but don’t count the charismatic pastor out: His new book, “Culturally Incorrect,” is currently 15 on Publisher’s Weekly’s bestseller list.

Although Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) has said he wants to eliminate the state’s troubled private-school voucher program, the Republican-controlled state House yesterday passed a budget maintaining the program, and the state Senate is apparently poised to do the same. The Columbus Dispatch reports on one parochial school that fails to meet the lowered requirements for private schools to receive state money: Harvest Preparatory Academy, operated by televangelist Rod Parsley’s World Harvest megachurch.

About 500 students attend Harvest Preparatory Academy. Thirty-six teachers and two aides educate them.

But only eight are licensed, the Ohio Department of Education says. And more than one-third of staff members hadn't had a background check more than midway through the school year.

Parsley is a major player in Ohio Republican politics. Along with Russell Johnson, another area megachurch pastor, he organized a political machine of so-called “patriot pastors” that in effect functioned as a church-based campaign arm for Kenneth Blackwell’s 2006 bid to defeat Strickland for governor. Blackwell, who once proposed eliminating all state funding of public schools, made expanding the voucher program a signature of his campaign, which lost by a wide margin.

Former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell may have decided to get back into public life, but he does not seem to have learned much from his devastating loss in last year’s election. Blackwell ran for governor of Ohio last year with an education policy platform based solely on his support for school defunding, the “65% Deception,” and vouchers. Blackwell’s opponent – now Governor Ted Strickland - expressed his principled opposition to vouchers throughout the campaign.

Blackwell’s full-throated advocacy of publicly funded private school vouchers earned him praise from some of the nation’s most ardent advocates of school privatization.

For instance, voucher warrior and affirmative action foe Clint Bolick said the voucher movement “has no greater friend than Ken Blackwell.” And voucher pusher Patrick Byrne, also the impresario of the “65% Deception,” praised Blackwell’s “passion” for vouchers. Voucher backers made sure that the money kept rolling in.  Blackwell’s campaign received at least $100, 000 from voucher groups such as Bolick’s Advocates for School Choice

But on Election Day, Blackwell received just under 37% of the vote.

In spite of that dramatic evidence that vouchers and other privatization schemes do not enjoy wide-spread public support in Ohio, and research showing the same nationally, Blackwell soldiers on.  In his first published column since joining the staff of the Family Research Council, Blackwell attacks Governor Strickland’s groundbreaking plan to eliminate the EdChoice voucher program and redirect the money back to Ohio’s public schools:

Calling school vouchers "undemocratic" and charter schools a "dismal failure," Gov. Strickland, in his first major public policy address, slammed the door of educational opportunity on thousands of poor children and crushed the hopes of their parents.

By denying these children the equal access to a quality education that choice programs offer, he also denied that the bloated public education bureaucracy and its entrenched unions have failed our children.

Despite Blackwell’s assertion that voucher programs offer students “equal access,” private schools can choose who to accept – many deny admission to all students with special needs – and students who currently receive vouchers do not have the ‘choice’ to attend any school they wish.  Last year, Ohio voters had a choice, and elected a governor openly committed to funding and strengthening Ohio’s public schools – and focusing on proven reforms – as the best way to ensure that all children have access to a quality education.

To “build up the economic and fiscal dimension.” Plus: He joins Club for Growth. Meanwhile: LaRue retires.

In Philadelphia Inquirer. Meanwhile: Losing Ohio gov. candidate Blackwell writes column for Townhall.com.

Citing Goldwater and Reagan, claims lack of “fidelity to principle” is what ails GOP.