« Politics
May 9, 2008
The Right Prepares to Challenge the IRS
It is no secret that, heading into the 2008 election, the Republican Party’s right-wing base is anything but energized about having to vote for John McCain. Facing dim prospects, the McCain campaign is doing what it can to court the Right, as is the RNC, while Religious Right power-brokers are working overtime to get pastors involved all over the country.
For instance, a few weeks ago, Kenyn Cureton, the Family Research Council’s Vice President for Church Ministries, appeared on Janet Folger’s “Faith2Action” radio program where he revealed their plans to encourage pastors to speak out leading up to the election and, in his words, “cross the line”:
“The pastors need to speak clearly about it. I’ll tell you we are working with the Alliance Defense Fund on a series of sermons this fall for pastors to preach, so that they educate their people on the issues.
“We’re gonna be talking about the value of life, the value of family and the value of freedom, basically talking about abortion and stem-cell research,” he continued, “and then also about the gay agenda and then finally about our Christian heritage and how it’s being stripped from every corner of society. And then finally we’re gonna be doing a candidate comparison message that is going to ask pastors to cross the line.”
At the time, it wasn’t know exactly what FRC and the Alliance Defense Fund were planning, but today the ADF revealed that it intends to find preachers who are willing to defy the current tax laws and openly challenge the IRS:
A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.
Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.
The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.
As Americans United’s Rob Boston put it, “If a few misguided churches want to become cogs in a political machine, they can simply give up their tax exemptions and play by the same tax and election-law rules as everybody else.” But the Right refuses to do that and has decided, instead, to challenge the constitutionality of the law in the court.
And given the current make-up of the Supreme Court and the likelihood that the next president will be placing one or more justices on the Court, it is quite possible that the outcome of this right-wing legal challenge, should it make it to the high court, will rest heavily on the outcome of the very election they are seeking to influence.
Posted by Kyle at 4:22 PM | Permalink
April 28, 2008
Alan Keyes In a Nutshell
It appears as if Alan Keyes’ presidential hopes have officially come to an end … at least for this year.
After launching a vanity campaign last summer, Keyes had high hopes for a solid showing in Iowa that never panned out. Keyes then relocated his campaign to Texas, where he pledged to deliver a major breakthrough that likewise never materialized.
Without apparently actually bothering to withdraw from the Republican Primary, the Keyes campaign went quiet before it emerged earlier this month to make a major announcement that he would be officially leaving the Republican Party to seek the Constitution Party’s presidential nomination.
The Constitution Party’s convention was held over the weekend and Keyes did not fare well:
Things aren't working out well for Alan Keyes. The perennial candidate with a worse electoral track record than Harold Stassen spent most of his adult lifetime in the Republican Party. He lasted in the Constitution Party for less than two weeks.
…
Chuck Baldwin -- a preacher, radio show host, and columnist who actually agreed with the Constitution Party's platform on the issues in question -- beat Keyes 3-to-1, a margin worthy of Barack Obama or Barbara Mikulski. Paleocons praised the Constitutionalists for sticking to their principles, which they did, but Keyes's odd notions about how to win friends and influence people also contributed to his drubbing.
Following his embarrassing defeat, Keyes granted an interview to Missouri Viewpoints where he expressed bitterness over being repeatedly stabbed in the back by every party he belongs to. Recounting that he had been “invited in by the leadership of the Illinois party” to run against Barack Obama, he complained that the party then failed to support him and instead, as he put it, “tried to kill me.” Keyes noted that there seems to be a pattern in all of his campaigns and activities where “people invite me in, and then they kill me; they invite me in and then they kill me; they invite me in and then they seek to kill me.”
But with his loss in seeking the Constitution Party’s nomination, Keyes finally has it all figured it all out and explains it as only he could (see full interview here):
The Lord shared with me that, Alan, the child that you are defending in the womb … in the act of procreation, people are joyfully, ecstatically, with great joy in every fiber of their being, saying "yes" to the coming of that new life. The invite the child in. And then in abortion, they kill it. So what, in point of fact my political career is, is the paradigm and pattern of that which I am trying to stop for the child. I kind of represent, in political terms, the abortion. You're invited in, but they kill you. You're invited in, but they kill you.
Posted by Kyle at 4:20 PM | Permalink
Huckabee Not The Forgiving Type
A while back, we noted that Mike Huckabee had been mending fences with the likes of The Club for Growth and the Family Research Council despite the fact that the groups had been cool, if not outright hostile, to his presidential aspirations.
While Huckabee may be trying to make nice with some of the DC powerbrokers, it doesn’t look like he is quite as forgiving of those who crossed him back in Arkansas.
Back when his campaign was starting to pick up steam, former Republican state representative Randy Minton was among those who started showing up in the press bad-mouthing Huckabee to anyone who would listen:
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, suddenly a serious candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is “the biggest RINO I know,” according to former state Rep. Randy Minton.
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“I call (Huckabee) a pro-life, pro-gun liberal,” says Minton, who says he himself belongs to “the Re-publican wing of the Republican Party.”
Minton says he is philosophically aligned with the anti-tax Club for Growth, which has begun running political ads attacking Huckabee as “Tax Hike Mike.”
…
“He says he’s pro-family. If you’re raising taxes on the families of Arkansas, causing wives to go out and get jobs to make ends meet, that’s not pro-family,” Minton said.
Minton was so opposed to the prospect of a Huckabee presidency that he even traveled to Iowa, on Ron Paul’s dime, to campaign against him:
Earlier this week, a group of Arkansans went to Iowa for three days of media appearances to lobby against Huckabee. Randy Minton, a former state legislator and chairman of the conservative Eagle Forum, was one of these new Travelers. “I will be going across the state raising awareness [of Huckabee's record],” said Minton before the trip. He cited Huckabee's record of raising taxes and his liberal use of pardons as two issues he planned to discuss.
Huckabee’s campaign eventually faltered and folded and Huckabee re-emerged as the head of a new PAC and, wouldn’t you know it, now that Minton has decided to run for a House seat in Arkansas, HuckPAC has likewise decided to back his opponent:
Despite his new status as national political celebrity, Huckabee is backing Minton's opponent in a very local legislative race.
Davy Carter of Cabot is Minton's GOP opponent for the House District 48 seat in the May 20 Republican primary. Sarah Huckabee, the former governor's daughter and executive director of HuckPAC, a newly created political action committee, confirmed Friday that her father is supporting Carter, and that the PAC would be supporting him, as well.
Minton did what he could to ensure that Huckabee’s candidacy went down in defeat and it looks like Huckabee has decided to return the favor.
Posted by Kyle at 4:18 PM | Permalink
RNC Plans "Aggressive" Religious Outreach on Behalf of McCain
Via The Brody File: "'We are going to have a very aggressive program to reach out to religious voters whether they are Evangelical, Protestant, Catholic or whatever. That is a staple of our campaign because what we find is that the most religious voters certainly in terms of Church attendance tend to vote Republican more than the general public. There are a lot of voters there for us. The senator’s team has been meeting with these (pro-family) groups. He has conducted some meetings and he’ll continue to have such meetings.'" David Barton is probably waiting by his phone for a call from the RNC to start ramping up his efforts.
Posted by Kyle at 1:34 PM | Permalink
April 25, 2008
Newt Gingrich: Alternative Historian
Since leaving office in 1999, Newt Gingrich has carved out a lucrative post-Congressional career for himself as a speaker, a pundit, “citizen leader,” and possible presidential candidate, all while serving as chairman of his own organization as well as a fellow at various right-wing think tanks. Heck, he’s even got his own avatar.
In addition, he’s also established himself as something of an “alternative historian,” writing novels that re-imagine everything from the Civil War to World War II. So enthralled with the idea of alternate history is Gingrich that he’s even pontificated on an “Alternative History of the War since 9/11” with fascinating results.
But now it seems as if Gingrich’s obsession with alternate history is starting to infect his other, more reality-based, pursuits.
For instance, yesterday Think Progress caught him defending John McCain’s embrace of John Hagee, saying that McCain had repudiated Hagee’s anti-Catholic statements and that attempts to hold McCain accountable for Hagee’s offensive views was “grabbing at straws.”
Gingrich went on to suggest that McCain has adopted “the Ronald Reagan position” meaning that “People get to endorse me. I'm not endorsing them."
That’s a good defense - unfortunately, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of what Reagan actually said:
The former actor, famed for his optimism and his ability to communicate it to the American public, was also famous for introducing many conservative Christians to real political influence.
Reagan was present -- and uttered one of his most famous lines -- at the meeting that many credit as the birth of the Religious Right, which molded evangelical Protestant conservatism into a cohesive political movement.
At the Religious Roundtable's National Affairs Briefing in 1980, after being introduced by a Southern Baptist evangelist as "God's man," Reagan -- then a presidential candidate -- told the gathering of conservative Christian luminaries, "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you."
Reagan's quip launched a relationship with conservative Christians that would eventually reshape America's political landscape.
Perhaps Gingrich should try to confine his fictitious historical yarns to his novels and avoid working them into his appearances as a political pundit.
Posted by Kyle at 10:45 AM | Permalink
April 24, 2008
McCain Wins By Losing
Suffice it to say that John McCain and Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL) have had something of a rocky relationship in the past, engaging in extensive litigation over the senator’s flagship McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation ever since WRTL ran ads back in 2004 targeting WI senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold despite a provision in the law “banning ads that mention the names of candidates for public office within certain ‘blackout periods’ ranging from 30 to 60 days before an election--if funds from corporations or unions are used to pay for the ads.”
As the Weekly Standard explained:
McCain has thrown himself into the McCain-Feingold litigation with unusual fervor, personally intervening in Wisconsin Right to Life's lawsuit rather than relying solely on the lawyers for the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department who are charged with defending the constitutionality of federal election laws. "It is not a common, ordinary occurrence" for sponsors of federal legislation to become involved in litigation over their handiwork, notes Bradley A. Smith, a law professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, who served as FEC chairman during Bush's first term and is a vocal opponent of McCain-Feingold as well as most other regulation of elections. "How rare it is I can't tell you, but it's more common just to file an amicus [friend-of-the-court] brief."
The case ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court and McCain even filed a brief in which he argued that WRTL’s actions were “a classic case of business corporations funneling unregulated monies to an advocacy group to pay for ads that will influence a federal election” in violation of the law.
Unfortunately for McCain, he ended up losing the case on a decision written by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by Justice Alito and and others whom he voted to confirm to the Court.
But it looks like WRTL isn’t one to hold a grudge, because they have now endorsed him and are citing his pledge to appoint more justices like Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court as one of the key reasons:
The Wisconsin Right to Life Political Action Committee today announced its endorsement of Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential race.
Senator McCain has a stellar 100% voting record on protecting unborn children from abortion. He opposes the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand in the United States and he voted to ban the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. He opposes taxpayer funding of abortion and supports legislation that would require parental notification prior to a minor's abortion.
Senator McCain opposes human cloning and the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes. He has stated that he would nominate U.S. Supreme Court justices in the mold of Justices Roberts and Scalia.
Presumably, all McCain needs to do to rack up support from his former Religious Right foes is to keep pledging to appoint the type of judges they demand, even if that means ones who will strike down legislation and views he otherwise champions.
Posted by Kyle at 4:21 PM | Permalink
April 23, 2008
Perfect Timing
As we noted last week, ever since courting John Hagee and receiving his endorsement in February, John McCain hasn’t been quite sure how to handle the controversy that came with it, at times trying to distance himself from Hagee and then turning around and bragging about his close ties with him.
When he was asked about the endorsement by George Stephanopoulos over the weekend, McCain basically summed up his have-it-both-ways position by saying it was probably a mistake to seek it while maintaining that he is glad to have it.
While McCain has gone out of his way to repudiate Hagee’s anti-Catholic statements and views, he’s hasn’t weighed in on Hagee’s other controversial views, such as his belief that New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina because the city “had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.”
McCain was probably hoping that Hagee would stop saying outrageous things like that and that the controversy would eventually go away – but that is not what is happening because, as Think Progress reports, Hagee continues to insist the New Orleans was targeted for destruction by God because a “homosexual rally” was being planned for the following Monday:
[Dennis] Prager followed up by asking [Hagee] if all natural disasters are a result of “the divine hand” and if there is “any natural disaster that is not the result of sin?” Hagee responded by saying “it’s a result of God’s permissible will” and “that there was going to be a massive homosexual rally there the following Monday,” which he said “was sin”
PRAGER: Right, but in the case, did NPR get, is this quote correct though that in the case of New Orleans you do feel it was sin?
HAGEE: In the case of New Orleans, their plan to have that homosexual rally was sin. But it never happened. The rally never happened.
PRAGER: No, I understand.
HAGEE: It was scheduled that Monday.
PRAGER: No, I’m only trying to understand that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel that God’s hand was in it because of a sinful city?
HAGEE: That it was a city that was planning a sinful conduct, yes.
Considering that McCain is scheduled to be in New Orleans tomorrow, this might be a good time to get him on the record again about just how glad he is to have Hagee’s endorsement.
Posted by Kyle at 1:16 PM | Permalink
April 22, 2008
Dusting Off the Dirty Playbook
It looks like the man responsible for 1988’s infamous Willie Horton ad is back and has his sights set on Barack Obama:
Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama's relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.
…
Brown's new ad focuses on a 2001 vote by Obama in the Illinois Senate to oppose a bill that would have expanded the use of the death penalty if the perpetrator of a crime belonged to a gang. The links between Obama's vote on that issue and the deaths of three Chicago resident's are indirect and tenuous, as is the further connection the ad draws between the issue of Obama's position on the death penalty and the issue of international terrorism.
Time reports that the ads will be funded by a PAC called the National Campaign Fund “which had $14,027 in the bank at the end of March,” which probably explains why Brown is focused on creating the “most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever” and hoping to gin up free media coverage to make up for the ad’s lack of funding, much like Mike Huckabee did, or at least tried to do, with his campaign ads (it is worth noting that Ari Berman of the "The Nation" reports that Brown's efforts are being "run by Bruce Hawkins, a former field organizer for Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson who recently worked for Mike Huckabee in Iowa.")
And speaking of free advertising, it looks like a pastor in South Carolina is trying make a name for himself by suggesting that Obama might secretly be Muslim:
Pastor Roger Byrd of Jonesville Church of God put the sign up which reads "Obama Osama humm are they brothers?"
Pastor Byrd says the sign is not meant to be racial or political but rather to make people think. "His name is so close to Osama, I have a feeling he might be Islamic therefore he doesn't recognize Christ," Pastor Byrd said.
Of course the ad is not political and was merely designed to make people think … that Obama is a Muslim and possible a terrorist.
Posted by Kyle at 4:16 PM | Permalink
April 21, 2008
McCain Has It Both Ways with Hagee
When John McCain picked up the endorsement of far-right televangelist John Hagee, it was only the loud protests of the Catholic League that got the media to notice, and eventually, got McCain to issue a weak statement: “I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”
The story more or less dropped after that, as journalists seemed much less interested in Hagee’s views about things other than the Catholic Church—such as his statement that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for a sinful New Orleans (or perhaps for policy in the Middle East?) or his position that the U.S. should launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran to usher in the second coming of Jesus. In any event, McCain continued to promote his ties to Hagee.
And in an interview with George Stephanopoulos yesterday, John McCain reiterated that he was “glad to have” televangelist John Hagee’s endorsement. Yet the ABCNews.com headline reads, “McCain Admits Hagee Endorsement Was A Mistake.”
McCain appears to be trying to have it both ways, assuring the media that it was “probably” a mistake to court Hagee’s support, while maintaining to the base that it was a mistake he’s “glad” he made.
Stephanopoulos. A lot of Senator Obama’s allies and others say that you should condemn the comments of Reverend John Hagee, an evangelical pastor …
McCain. Oh, I do. And I did. I said that any comments he made about the Catholic Church I strongly condemned, of course.
Stephanopoulos. Yet you solicited and accepted his endorsement.
McCain. Yes, indeed, I did. And I condemned the comments that he made concerning the Catholic Church.
Stephanopoulos. Yet you’re going to hold on to his endorsement. Your own campaign acknowledges that you should have done a better job of vetting pastor Hagee …
McCain. Oh, sure.
Stephanopoulos. So was it a mistake to solicit and accept his endorsement?
McCain. Oh, probably. Sure. But I admire and respect Doctor Hagee’s leadership of his church. I admire and appreciate his advocacy for the state of Israel, the independence and freedom of the state of Israel. I condemn remarks that are made that has anything to do—which is condemning of the Catholic Church. …
McCain. I’m glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are any way viewed as anti-anything. And thanks for asking. (Laughs.)
(Watch the video here—remarks at 16:45.)
Posted by Ezra at 1:58 PM | Permalink
April 16, 2008
Keyes Makes It Official
Alan Keyes has officially left the Republican Party: "Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes announced Tuesday night that he has left the GOP and is considering joining the Constitution Party. Keyes, who also ran as a Republican to challenge Barack Obama's U.S. Senate bid in Illinois in 2004, says he is talking with leaders and rank-and-file members of the Constitution Party."
Posted by Kyle at 4:59 PM | Permalink
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