Barack Obama claimed the state of North Carolina today, which hasn’t gone to a Democrat since Jimmy Carter. But before we could reflect on this historic triumph, we were reminded of something we read last week, which made us think of this:
Don’t worry. We can explain.
Senator Lindsey Graham, warming up a North Carolina audience for McCain, assured them that McCain would win: "He fits North Carolina like a glove…I’ll beat Michael Phelps in swimming before Barack Obama wins North Carolina." Whoops! Graham continued, "Don't let me down, because I can’t swim."
But rather than eating his words, we hope Graham will take the opportunity to learn to swim. Swimming is an important skill, especially for a man who could himself get washed away by a blue wave.
We’ve done him the favor of inquiring about beginner lessons in South Carolina. The Columbia YMCA has two very promising offerings:
Graham was right about one thing: McCain does fit North Carolina like a glove. We tried it ourselves, and the glove kept getting hung up on Asheville:
Back in 2006, the University of Minnesota released a poll showing that atheists were the most distrusted minority group in America:
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.
That finding was backed up by a Gallup poll in 2007 that showed that a majority of Americans were unwilling to elect an atheist whereas a majority said they would be willing to elect someone who was gay.
Apparently Elizabeth Dole’s re-election campaign was aware of this bias, which is why they have decided to play their “scary atheism” card at the last minute. Having already gone after her opponent, Kay Hagan, on the issue of gays getting married, the Dole campaign has released a new add linking Hagan to the Godless America PAC and accusing her of taking “Godless money,” whatever that is:
The ad claims that the “leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor” which, as the Huffington Post points out, is bogus – it was actually a “fundraiser co-hosted by 40 people, including a representative of the Godless America PAC.”
A new television ad by Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s re-election campaign that ties her rival, state Sen. Kay Hagan, to an atheist group has provoked a threat of legal action from the Greensboro Democrat.
“I can’t tell you how upset I am that Elizabeth Dole is attacking my strong Christian faith,” Hagan said late Tuesday.
Hagan, who is an elder at First Presbyterian Church, said she is incensed by the ad because at the end it shows her picture with a female voice saying, “There is no God.”
Her campaign will hold a news conference in Greensboro today to push back against the ad, and Hagan said lawyers for the campaign are preparing to send a cease-and-desist order demanding that Dole stop the ad.
But the Dole camp is unapologetic:
“The ad is 100 percent accurate,” Dole spokesman Dan McLagan said. “If the truth hurts, that’s their problem.”
As I noted in my last post on Dole’s campaign tactics, until recently she had never really been the type to engage in this sort of wedge-issue, right-wing scaremongering, which makes her descent into it all the more pathetic. If she keeps this up, I’m going to have to add her to my regular monitoring rotation since she seems to be turning into a regular fountain of wing-nuttery.
As far as I can recall, Sen Elizabeth Dole had never been one to make controversial social issues a centerpiece of her politics and had never really been one for paling around with the Religious Right. I might be wrong about that, but my understanding was that while the Right liked her she was never a particularly vocal supporter of their agenda and only rarely, if ever, showed up at their events. Heck, until I wrote this post, Dole had been mentioned here so rarely that she hadn't even warranted a tag on the blog.
Which makes this mailer she and the North Carolina Republican Party are sending out targeting her opponent all the more pathetic - PageOneQ has the story and the images:
Focus on the Family is getting involved in House and Senate races in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas, sending out scorecards in which Republican candidates are praised for their “consistently pro-life and pro-family records” and the Democrats are blasted for having “taken audaciously liberal positions – particularly on life and marriage.”
The text of all the mailers are more or less the same, with the exception of the paragraphs about the specific candidates – here is the text of the one targeting the Minnesota Senate Race [PDF]:
It’s not every day that individuals find themselves in a position to significantly impact the direction of an entire nation, but that’s exactly where you are today. As a Minnesota voter, you are right in the middle of one of the most important and closely watched Senate races in the country.
The stakes in this contest could not be higher. If Barack Obama wins the White House—a very real possibility—the U.S. Senate will be the last defense against his liberal agenda on abortion and marriage. Sen. Obama has already promised to support the Freedom of Choice Act, which would overturn every pro-life law on abortion in the nation. He has also pledged to abolish the Defense of Marriage Act and to allow open homosexuality in our military. The only hope of stopping this radical onslaught will be a strong showing of commonsense conservatives in the Senate.
A conservative Senate will be no less important under a McCain presidency. If John McCain should emerge victorious in November, he’ll need every Senate vote he can get to confirm Supreme Court judges who will uphold the Constitution and restore sanity to our courts.
That’s why Minnesota’s Senate race is so critical. The contrast between the candidates is sharp. Norm Coleman has maintained a stellar pro-life record and a generally pro-family record in the U.S. Senate. Al Franken, on the other hand, has not only taken strikingly liberal positions since returning to Minnesota, but his comedic record in New York is an embarrassment to those who care about family values.
Please take a careful look at the issue checklist to the right. It contains details regarding the candidates’ stands on life, marriage and the judiciary, as well as insights on other issues that are important to families—such as gas prices and the threat of higher taxes.
Furthermore, Focus has also customized each mailing … seemingly using backdrops leftover from the 1970’s:
There has been a lot of speculation about whether or not Sarah Palin has the necessary qualifications to be Vice President or, if necessary, President. As such, McCain supporters have been desperately trying to come up evidence that she does, claiming that she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is near Russia, that she has national security credentials because she is "commander in chief" of the Alaska National Guard, and that “she knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”
Those efforts to prop up Palin came crashing down yesterday when top McCain’s surrogate Carly Fiorina admitted that Palin was unqualified to run a company such as Hewlett Packard - a comment for which Fiorina has now been “disappeared.”
But as it turns out, concerns about experience and qualifications aren’t really all that important anyway, as Sen. Elizabeth Dole learned yesterday while hanging out with the good folks from the local Christian Coalition affiliate. All that really matters is the fact that McCain is a “Christian and a hero”:
Among those on bus were U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole; Linda Daves, North Carolina Republican Party chairman; Buddy Roemer, former Louisiana governor who is campaigning for John McCain; state Sen. Robert Pittenger, candidate for lieutenant governor; and Jack Sawyer, candidate for N.C. secretary of state.
More than 550 people came out for the 15th annual God and Country Banquet sponsored by the Craven-Pamlico Christian Coalition. The group recognized candidates attending from parties, but the dinner was highlighted by speeches from Roemer, Dole and Pittenger.
"I want to live in a godly nation," said Walter Leake, coalition chairman and emcee of the event. Speakers included testimonies about their faith with their appeals for votes.
…
[Roemer] was clearly stumping for his longtime friend and told the story of McCain's faith during his prisoner-of-war experience.
"Being a hero doesn't make you a good president," he said. "But being a Christian and a hero is a good start where I come from."
Like McCain, Palin is a Christian and is certainly being treated like a hero, so I guess that’s all we really need to know.
