Tennessee

• Congratulations to Pam on her Women's Media Center Award.
• As Hilzoy says, you'd think "the absence of any evidence that the Obama administration was considering reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would have prevented people from talking darkly about the end of talk radio and freedom of speech. Regrettably, we do not live in a sane world."
• David Weigel has been banned from covering the upcoming American Cause conference.
• Jessica Valenti explains how the virginity movement is attempting to re-brand its abstinence message and legitimize its message by presenting it as science-based.
• Think Progress reports that "pressure has been building on Tennessee State Sen. Diane Black (R) to fire her aide, Sherri Goforth, who sent an e-mail with a racist image of President Obama." Instead Black issued a "strongly worded reprimand" that was really nothing of the sort.
• Think Progress also reports that Senator Jim Inhofe made up his mind not to support Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court ... eleven years ago.
• Finally, as Crooks and Liars notes, its easy for Tony Perkins to sound like an expert on health care when he can just spew Frank Luntz's talking points.

• As Good as You says, you don't get to call your ad campaign a rousing success when all of the coverage of it has come in the form of mockery.
• Texas Governor Rick Perry really seems to be going off the deep end, as Daily Kos explains.
• He's also being, as Steve Benen notes, something of a hypocrite.
• On top of that, Perry also appeared on Michael Savage's radio program which, given Savage's long history of offensive statements, is truly remarkable.
• Box Turtle Bulletin http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/04/15/10686 ">highlights a truly bizarre bill introduced in response to the Iowa marriage ruling that states "a person shall not be compelled to recognize a marriage solemnized in this state if such recognition conflicts with the person’s religious beliefs or moral convictions."
• The ACLU says that two Tennessee public school districts are preventing students from accessing online information about LGBT issues while allowing them to access information from anti-gay groups.
• Greg Sargent reports that DHS did, in fact, release a report on "left wing extremists," while Media Matters chronicles the continuing freak out by conservatives about the report on right wing extremists.
• Finally AU's Rob Boston weighs in on the premature obituary being written about the Religious Right yet again, noting smartly that "the Religious Right is so closely identified with the Republican Party that its fortunes are now tied to that political unit. You might have noticed that the Republicans aren’t doing so well right now. That means the Religious Right isn’t doing so well either."

Yesterday, I noted that Tony Perkins was declaring Sarah Palin the "future of the [Republican] Party."  You know who will probably not become the future of the Republican Party?  Christine Todd Whitman, at least if the Religious Right has anything to say about it, because she says that Palin and people like Perkins are exactly what is causing the GOP to lose:

Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, McCain tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party's social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

Palin has many attractive qualities as a candidate. Being prepared to become president at a moment's notice was not obviously among them this year. Her selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to social fundamentalists, reinforcing the impression that they control the party, with the party's consent.

In the wake of the Democrats' landslide victory, and despite all evidence to the contrary, many in the GOP are arguing that John McCain was defeated because the social fundamentalists wouldn't support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don't find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.

Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness. On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division. It's long past time for the GOP to do the same.

You know who else probably won't become the future of the GOP? Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, or Peter King:

As Congressional Republicans lick their political wounds and try to figure out how to bounce back in 2010 and beyond, they might want to consult with Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander and Peter T. King.

Senator Collins, Senator Alexander and Representative King were among Republicans who defied the odds in a terrible year for their colleagues. Their re-elections provide a possible road map for how the party can succeed in a challenging political environment. The answer, the three veteran politicians agreed, is not to become a more conservative, combative party focused on narrow partisan issues.

“What doesn’t work is drawing a harsh ideological line in the sand,” said Ms. Collins, of Maine, who early in the year was a top Democratic target for defeat but ended up winning 61 percent of the vote while Senator Barack Obama received 58 percent in the presidential race in her state.

“We make a mistake if we are going to make our entire appeal rural and outside the Northeast and outside the Rust Belt,” said Mr. King, of New York, who easily won re-election in a region shedding Republicans at a precipitous rate.

“We can stand around and talk about our principles, but we have to put them into actions that most people agree with,” said Mr. Alexander, of Tennessee, a self-described conservative who was able to attract African-American voters.

As much as I would love to see the GOP dump the Religious Right, I don't have much faith that it will actually happen.  In fact, the best chance the party had to do so was with John McCain, but instead of standing by his infamous "agents of intolerance" remark, the "maverick" utterly caved and capitulated to the Right.

Until the GOP can nominate a presidential candidate who openly eschews the Religious Right and still wins the election or the Right gets a dream nominee, someone like Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin, who makes the right-wing agenda the centerpiece of their campaign and then gets utterly destroyed at the polls, the Religious Right and the Republican Party are going to be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, whether they like it or not.

During Labor Day weekend, 2001, Waagner abandoned a vehicle in Memphis, Tennessee, following a hit and run accident. Authorities recovered various items from the vehicle including a rifle, a shotgun, a pipe bomb, and anti-abortion literature. That same weekend, Waagner fled the area after committing a carjacking in nearby Tunica, Mississippi. Waagner had previously testified that he is an "anti-abortion warrior" and admitted to stalking abortion clinics around the country. During the second week of October 2001, more than 280 letters that threatened to contain anthrax were mailed to women's reproductive health clinics on the east coast. The envelopes were marked "Time Sensitive" and "Urgent Security Notice Enclosed." The envelopes also bore return addresses of the U.S. Marshals Service or the U.S. Secret Service. During the first week of November 2001 a second series of more than 270 anthrax threat letters were sent to women's reproductive health clinics via Federal Express.

It was just five months ago that James Dobson declared unequivocally that he would not, under any circumstances, ever support John McCain for president, saying “I cannot, and I will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.”   In fact, so opposed to McCain was Dobson that he went so far as to organize an effort to secure one million signatures in opposition to McCain’s nomination and then publicly reiterated his vehement opposition to his nomination just a few months later.  

But wouldn’t you know it, like every other craven political calculation and empty threat he has ever made, Dobson has changed his mind and concluded that Barack Obama is such a monumental threat to this nation that he almost has no other choice but to blatantly violate his own conscience for the greater good of the Republican Party:

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

"I never thought I would hear myself saying this," Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. "... While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."

So why is Dobson suddenly changing his tune?  In short, he is absolutely terrified of Obama:

He is also supportive of the entire gay activist agenda.  We're not just talking about showing respect for people and equal rights for all citizens of the United States.  It’s not referring to it in those terms. He’s talking about homosexual marriage. I mean, he makes no bones about that. He's talking about hate crimes legislation which would limit religious liberty, I have no doubt about that, that ministers and others - people like us - are going to very quickly be prohibited from expressing your faith and your theology on certain views.  … Just so many aspects of his views on that issue that keep me awake at night frankly … that he is so extreme, that he does threaten traditional family life and pro-moral values … This has been the most difficult moral dilemma for me.  It’s why you haven’t heard me say much about it because I have struggled on this issue.  And there are some concerns here that matter to me more than my own life and neither of the candidates is consistent with my views in that regard. But Senator McCain is certainly closer to them then Senator Obama, by a wide margin. And there's no doubt, at least no doubt in my mind, about whose policies will result in more babies being killed. Or who will do the greatest damage to the institution of marriage and the family. I'm convinced that Senator McCain comes closer to what I believe. So I am not endorsing Senator McCain today … But as of this moment, I have to take into account the fact that Senator John McCain has voted pro-life consistently and that's a fact. He says he favors marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that. He opposes homosexual adoption. He favors smaller government and lower taxes and he seems to understand the Muslim threat, which matters a lot to me – I am very concerned about that.

Below is the full transcript of today’s program in which Dobson and the Southern Baptist Convention's Al Mohler explain just how “alarming” Barack Obama’s political and theological views are and the dire threat he poses to “traditional family life and pro-moral values":

James Dobson has a long history of threatening to abandon the Republican Party and take his supporters with him, only to turn around and undertake get-out-the-vote activities seemingly designed to help the GOP win elections.

Back in 2006, Dobson blasted the Republican leadership, saying that “values voters” had “very little to show” for all their efforts at getting them elected and that there would be “trouble down the road” if they didn’t start moving on the issues the Religious Right cares about.  And to show just how serious he was about holding their feet to the fire, he set out to organize and participate in massive voter registration rallies in places like Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee while boosting his efforts on his radio program.   

But this time around, fresh on the heels of telling the entire world that he will not, ever, under any circumstances forsake his principles and support John McCain, it looks like Dobson just might be serious, as he has announced that he is seeking “to enlist 1 million Values Voters” to pledge to stand on principle and not vote for McCain … or something:

Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman Dr. James Dobson invites values voters to pledge to uphold pro-family principles during this year’s election.

In response to the media’s efforts to minimize the impact of values voters, Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family Action are initiating a nationwide Values Voter Pledge. The pledge is a statement by citizens who are committing to vote only for candidates who uphold the highest pro-life, pro-faith and pro-family principles.

Focus Action is hoping 1 million voters will take the pledge, which will serve as a demonstration of the strength and seriousness of Values Voters in this election.

The pledge itself reads:

As a concerned citizen, I am signing this Values Voter Pledge for 2008 indicating my commitment to stand for the values of life, faith and family during this election year. I am pledging to support candidates who uphold these bedrock values of:

 • Life -- I will only vote for candidates who have committed to defend sanctity of life from conception to natural death.

 • Family -- I will only vote for candidates who stand for one-man, one-woman marriage and oppose efforts to undermine the nuclear family.  

 • Faith -- I will only vote for candidates who support the public acknowledgement of God and affirm the religious liberties of all Americans.

I also oppose any and all efforts by the media, organizations or candidates to diminish the role that Values Voters are playing in this year’s election. I authorize Focus on the Family Action to represent my Values Voter Pledge before the media, political candidates or other suitable forums as a demonstration of the strength and seriousness of Values Voters in this election cycle.

Since Dobson attacked McCain specifically on these issues in his statement, this is presumably some sort of attempt to induce McCain to pander to them by getting a million potential voters to threaten to sit on the sidelines unless he does.  But since Dobson has already made it abundantly clear that he hates McCain and has no intention of voting for him anyway, what incentive is there for McCain to even bother appeasing him?  

Plus, given the vague language in the pledge, couldn’t McCain plausibly claim to “uphold these bedrock values” already?  After all, he believes that “that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of a man and a woman,” proclaims that “the defense of innocent life” is at “the core of [his] value system,” and, as he declared at the Values Voter Summit, “Religious freedom does not require Americans to hide their faith from public view or that communities must refrain from publicly acknowledging the importance to them of faith.”

McCain seems to meet all of Dobson’s various criteria, so what exactly is the problem?

Mike Huckabee has not been shy about criticizing Washington’s Religious Right powerbrokers for failing to back his campaign, repeatedly accusing them of choosing “political expediency” over core values and questioning their reluctance to support a “true soldier for the cause” and exhorting them to be ‘‘Christian leaders, not Republican leaders.” 

But as The New Republic reported yesterday, all this bellyaching only seems to be alienating the Washington insiders even further:

Huck shouldn’t expect a flood of big-name endorsements any time soon. For one thing, the erstwhile minister has seriously cheesed off some leaders with his public complaints about their not showing him the love. They express bemusement at his sense of “entitlement” and find his whining about their not rushing to endorse him downright irritating. As Bauer notes, “I for one give no credence to the idea that, because somebody worships the same way I do, they automatically have a claim on my support."

Some leaders also worry (hope?) that, with Huck now being taken more seriously, his record and positions will draw greater scrutiny—and harsher criticism. “As he comes under more examination, there is a real possibility of there [emerging] misgivings about him on economic and foreign policy issues. So then those voters will go somewhere else,” says Bauer. Particularly on foreign policy, he stresses, “his instincts are not good."

In the past, Huckabee has had particularly harsh words for his fellow Southern Baptist Richard Land:

‘‘Richard Land swoons for Fred Thompson,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t know what that’s about. For reasons I don’t fully understand, some of these Washington-based people forget why they are there. They make ‘electability’ their criterion. But I am a true soldier for the cause. If my own abandon me on the battlefield, it will have a chilling effect.’’

Apparently, the bad-blood between Huckabee and Land goes back to the days in the early 1990s when fundamentalists set out to take over the Southern Baptist Convention and Huckabee failed to side with them:

Only a handful of prominent SBC leaders have come out in Huckabee’s favor as well. While churches and non-profit religious institutions are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates, a handful of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders have offered personal endorsements of their colleague. Among them are former pastor and denominational executive Jimmy Draper and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Danny Akin.

Perhaps the most obvious omission in Huckabee’s crowd of supporters is Richard Land, the head of the SBC’s social-concerns agency and a conservative veteran of the denomination’s struggle. While he has, in the recent past, spoken glowingly of former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson and negatively of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Land has had little to say about his fellow Southern Baptist’s candidacy.

…

Paul Pressler, a retired Texas judge who is one of the two acknowledged masterminds of the conservative battle plan to wrest the SBC from moderates’ control, has also endorsed Thompson.

Privately, some close to Huckabee and familiar with Southern Baptist politics say that leaders like Land and Pressler simply don’t trust him because he refused to be a loyal foot-soldier during the SBC wars.

Maybe that explains it.  Or who knows, maybe there is some sort of conspiracy at work:

Several months ago we noted that Richard Land was trying to position himself as a key player within the Religious Right hierarchy and had been publicly challenging James Dobson on a variety of fronts, including immigration, global warming and, most importantly, the candidacy of Fred Thompson.

From the get-go, Land has been a vocal advocate of Thompson, issuing fawning praise of him at every opportunity – so it must have come as a rude surprise when, last week, Dobson weighed in and declared Thompson unacceptable:

In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.

"Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson wrote. "He has no passion, no zeal and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

Obviously, this didn’t sit well with Land, so it is not surprising that he has decided to strike back, reaching out to CBN’s David Brody to defend Thompson and blast Dobson:

“I’ve received phone calls and emails from Southern Baptists about Senator Thompson. They are all furious at Doctor Dobson. They just feel that first of all there was a mischaracterizing of his positions. Do I wish that he supported the marriage protection amendment? Of course I do.  To say that he is for 50 different views of marriage in 50 different states is a gross mischaracterization of his position. Secondly, do I wish that he attended church every Sunday? As a Baptist pastor, of course I do. But does that make him a person of unbelief? That’s harsh and unwarranted.”

Land defends Thompson’s opposition to a marriage amendment by claiming that Thompson is simply so principled that he will not jettison his staunch “federalist” convictions for political gain, before winding it up by proclaiming that Thompson is “one of us”: 

“Fred Thompson grew up in a very modest means in a small town in America just like Ronald Reagan grew up in very modest means in a small town in Illinois. You acquire not only an understanding of but a respect for everyday folk when you come from the background that you don’t get otherwise and people sense it. That this is a guy who respects me, a guy who understands that we are the backbone of this country, we are the salt of the Earth and he not only understands us, he’s one of us. He’s a successful one of us but he’s one of us and they trust a guy like that. They give a guy like that a larger margin of error. Nobody gets everything right but its core values. My assessment is that this guy is a whole much like Reagan including his Teflon quality. The press has been beating up with him for these types of gaffes and he continues to climb in the polls.”

It is exceedingly rare that anyone on the Right dares to criticize Dobson, much less do so publicly.  In fact, the last people to do so ended up getting booted out of the movement.  

This sort of high-profile fight cannot be helping the Right as it struggles to figure out how to maintain its influence going into the 2008 election.  But at least it ought to make the upcoming Values Voter Summit all the more interesting, since both Land and Dobson are going to be there.