The reviews from Christian Right leaders on John McCain's Saddleback performance are in, and the Arizona senator gets major props from a crowd that has frequently pilloried him.
The Politico prints glowing quotes Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land, and a slew of lower-level Christian Right activists
McCain's performance on Saturday night was no doubt trophy worthy. But part of his secret has been setting a really low bar among conservative evangelical leaders.
Now it appears McCain is ratcheting down that bar again by floating the possibility of a pro-choice running mate, either Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman. The experts are saying this is just a ploy to thrill social conservatives with his eventual announcement of a pro-life veep.
Yes, this expectations-exceeding game works with the Christian Right activist set, but what about with rank-and-file social conservatives? Will their hearts likely to beat faster each time McCain clears his low bar? Or are they more likely to be demoralized by McCain setting so many low bars in the first place?
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Rank and file social conservatives and the Christian Right activist set will vote for McCain...they have no where else to go. Besides, they are Republicans.
If McCain picks a pro-choice V.P. that will all change. Meanwhile, Obama is going to pick his V.P. and he is now attacking McCain for his patriotism statements.
Obama will pick up the lead again at the convention and when he debates start, who know what will happen. I hope people will see that McCain's "Faith" is just lip service and the only issue he supports of the Religious Right is the Pro-life and that could be sacrificed by his V.P. choice.
And why are the conservatives picking up the fact that McCain has accepted $4 million from "employees" of the oil industry. Doesn't that tell you that when it comes to lobbyists, he is two faced, saying that he will fight them but still he takes their "soft money"?
Actually none of this is surprising. It was expected that Obama would start to fall in the polls and a foreign policy mess certainly cannot help him. Even if Obama gets a huge bump after his convention, it will probably not help him very much by election day.
The religious right is actually pretty irrelevant in all this. No matter what they think of McCain or his running mate, he is infinitely preferrable to social conservatives than an Obama administration. Given the choice between benign neglect and active hostility they will pick benign neglect.
Senator Fred Thompson has a peculiar idea of what good character is. At the Republican National Convention, after saying proudly that John McCain was a major discipline problem (giving credit to his genetics, i.e. mother and father), and telling a story about his dating a girl who worked in a bar as an exotic dancer under the name of Marie, the Flame of Florida, he tells us that his behavior as a prisoner of war further proves his character. According to an article favorable to John McCain, called Prisoner of war by Dan Nowicki, Bill Muller in The Arizona Republic on Mar. 1, 2007 10:32 AM, McCain says that after being beaten (note he was not water-boarded, just beaten) he signed a confession saying "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors."
I am sure that John McCain like many others, including John Kerry, is a war hero, but details of John war stories seems to change to fit the Republican priorities of the moment.
The stories that seems to never change are that John was fifth from the bottom of his class and a disciplinary problem at the Navel Academy, leading other young men into undisciplined behavior, including undisciplined behavior involving women; and, believe it or not he and the Republicans are proud of all this. Furthermore, let’s not forget that he committed a string of adulteries against his first wife who had waited for him during his time as a prisoner of war and then divorced her.
I don’t get it. It is the Republican’s who are always talking about setting examples for our youth. Here is yet another example of what they think is a good example.
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