The Democratic Party shows no sign of letting up in its campaign to shame John McCain for accepting the endorsement of John Hagee, the Texas evangelist who’s had some very unkind words for Catholics. God-o-Meter wonders whether, in continuing to bash Hagee, Democrats risk losing more evangelical voters than the number of Catholics they stand to gain. Then again, despite the DNC’s stepped-up evangelical outreach effort, evangelicals are the bedrock GOP constituency. Catholics, by contrast, are the quintessential swing voters. So it’s probably a safe gamble on the Democrats’ part. Here’s Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean today on CNN’s Late Edition:
“And just this week he refused to denounce and reject John Hagee, a militant anti-catholic, right-wing pastor. John McCain has a history of doing what it takes regardless of what the ethics of this are. I think he’s going to be a flawed candidate. I don’t think people want four more years of what is essentially George Bush.”
“John McCain has a problem with personal integrity. He has a problem of saying one thing and doing another. What about John Hagee? What about a guy who is a vicious anti-Catholic, who is supporting John McCain and John McCain does not denounce or reject him, as Barack Obama did to Louis Farrakhan. That is the kind of stuff that really bothers Americans. People arguing over philosophy is not a problem. We can have our disagreements with John McCain. Maybe people want to stay in Iraq for 100 years. That’s fair game. But people will not elect somebody who they don’t think is honest and I don’t think John McCain has made a case for his honesty.”
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posted March 2, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Howard Dean is not exactly a person that can throw stones at the religious. His disdain of Evangelicals is palpable. Also, he is a physician that encourages women to kill their unborn children for convenience. As a baptised and confirmed Catholic, I’ll take John Hagee’s dislike of my religious affiliation over what a person like Howard Dean is. Hagee “talks” a lot. That is a far cry from an abortion. McCain is safe with Catholics when compared to Obama and Clinton.
posted March 2, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Wake up!–
Howard Dean’s disdain for Evangelicals is palpable? Did you know his chief of staff is an ordained Pentecostal minister, or that he was the first DNC chair to sit down with Southern Baptist Convention public policy chief Richard Land? Where’s your evidence that he disdains evangelicals?
posted March 3, 2008 at 11:58 am
Wake up and evidence are strangers to one another. Commnets like “he is a physician that encourages women to kill their unborn children for convenience” are not only the bearing of false witness, they are a convenient untruth. So much Swift-boating. You’d think people who call themselves “Christian” would take Christ’s commandments a bit more seriously.