I spoke to the Arlington Group on Thursday. This is a group of leading conservative Evangelicals from across the nation. I asked how many of them supported Huckabee. Less than 50 percent raised their hands. And several of them spoke out against Huckabee.
Hmm. I wonder to what extent this polling of the Evangelical elite is like polling the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and taking the result as indicative of how grassroots Catholics feel about a politician. If so, it's pretty worthless, especially given that there seems to be a real generational shift in political views and priorities among Evangelicals.
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Lord, have mercy. The Apocalypse is upon us. I agree with Daniel, because this time Daniel is spot on.
I just looked at the memebers on the Wiki entry. Or at least some of the people they think are the memebers. If Huckabee got 50 percent of that group I am impressed
Does anyone take Mark Levin as a serious political commentator who's trying to communicate facts and not ideology? Folks like Levin will only ever be happy if Ronald Reagan smashes through six feet of earth only to emerge back in the Oval Office.
Levin - the 80's are over. Thank God.
jh has a point. The Arlington Group Membership list is generally consistent with the Wikipedia entry characterization: "leaders of almost all of the most prominent Christian Right organizations in the United States," but there are enough exceptions to make it a pretty motley crew.
"Prominence" in this case does not equate to gravitas, nor is the list all "conservative evangelicals" as Levin has it.
Don Wildmon, a co-founder, is Chicken Little on all matters media ("Ohmygawd! This show has a homosexual character who's not demon-possessed!"). Paul Weyrich, the other co-founder, is a very effective operative, but not an evangelical. Susan B. Anthony List is a pro-life feminist PAC which really doesn't fit in the Christian Right camp at all, though its leader apparently thought it useful to affiliate with Arlington Group. Alan Sears is not an evangelical, though all the ADF founders were. CatholicVote.org doesn't sound very evangelical to me.
I don't often exhibit my membership card in the vast right-wing conspiracy because its tone too often is divisive. But then, I've rarely seen a fundraising letter, left or right, that wasn't shrill, divisive - even demonizing. I challenged the tone of one Arlington Group affiliate's fundraising letters a few years ago, and got an anguished personal reply from a leader to the effect of "You've upset me. Fundraising is really hard. We have to be shrill."
I'm grateful for the conciliatory tones of Huckabee and Obama even as I remain skeptical about the imminence of the eschaton.
Mark Levin: for when Rush Limbaugh's fiercely independent Socratic intellect provokes chronic Dittoheadaches.
At least Levin's found a new avenue with the latest bestseller for canine worshipers. Perhaps he'll go for the trifecta next year and, in a C21 update of the old 1930s chestnut about the ideal composite bestseller, publish (replacing Lincoln) *Reagan's Doctor's Dog*.
Then he can avoid that worst of all punishments meted out to right-wing kindergarteners: having to spend the rest of his life sitting in The Corner.
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