Dan Gilgoff: October 2008 Archives

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole's challenger Kay Hagan has create a new ad called "Belief" in response to Dole's "Godless" spot, which attacked Hagan for attending a fundraiser connected to someone who is connected to an atheist group.

This is a very post-2004 way for a Democrat to respond to a faith-based attack: quickly responding to the attack head-on and testifying unabashedly about one's faith commitment. Which is to say, it's a very "Obama" way to respond to a faith-based attack, as opposed to the "Kerry" way of responding: wringing one's hands and marrying each public pronouncement about one's faith to a reaffirmation of support for the complete separation of church and state.

The "Godless" ad that U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole is running against her Democratic challenger in North Carolina is a stark reminder that faith-based attacks have been kept to a relative minimum in the presidential race.

It's also a reminder, to GOM at least, that the McCain campaign has thus far refrained from running ads against Obama based on Jeremiah Wright, his longtime pastor. That kind of attack would be the opposite of Dole's in North Carolina; rather than paint Obama as "Godless," it would skewer him for cozying up to a man of the cloth.

To God-o-Meter, there's a pattern here: faith-based attacks tend to come from Republicans who are religious and who've incorporated their faith into their political personas, e.g. Dole and Palin. And McCain, a Republican who's famously uncomfortable incorporating faith into his political persona is refraining from such attacks.

So if Palin, Mike Huckabee, or another social conservative gets the nod in 2012, due to a post-McCain religious right uprising, we could be looking at more faith-based attacks at the presidential level. By then, though, Rev. Wright would be old news

David Brody has the scoop on Christian lit the McCain camp is distributing to churches across the country. The document is framed as a voting guide to the hot button social issues: abortion, gay marriage, judges, sex education, school choice. That's all well and good. This is the kind of thing McCain needed to start doing a year ago to mobilize the GOP's faith-based base.

But what surprises GOM is that the McCain campaign, in background interviews, argues that the evangelical movement is much more broad-minded than it used to be, pointing out that McCain's leadership on issues like global warming is likely to resonate with this crowd. In its limited evangelical outreach, however, McCain has ignored those centrist positions to bang the drum on the kind of culture war issues that McCain has long been uncomfortable discussing--which made him so unpopular with the Christian Right for so long.

Notice how so much political reporting these days about the future of the Republican Party is about the God Gap between religious conservatives and the rest of the party? Much of it hinges on the fact that Sarah Palin has become the movement's new political face. The New York Times reports today that conservatives are already discussing her future political prospects should the McCain-Palin ticket be defeated next Tuesday (The Times says it's "conservatives" who are excited about Palin, but the paper is basically writing about social conservatives):

Whether the Republican presidential ticket wins or loses on Tuesday, a group of prominent conservatives are planning to meet the next day to discuss the way forward, and whatever the outcome, Gov. Sarah Palin will be high on the agenda.

Ms. Palin, of Alaska, has had a rocky time since being named as Senator John McCain's running mate, but to many conservatives her future remains bright. If Mr. McCain wins, she will give the social conservative movement a seat inside the White House. If he loses, she could emerge as a standard bearer for the movement and a potential presidential candidate in 2012, albeit one who will need to address her considerable political damage.

Her prospects, in or out of government, are the subject of intensive conversations among conservative leaders, including the group that will meet next Wednesday in rural Virginia to weigh social, foreign policy and economic issues, as well as the political landscape and the next presidential election.

Ms. Palin's aides insist that winning this time around is her sole objective. But there are signs that she, too, is making sure that she is well positioned for the future if she and Mr. McCain lose.

The 2012 Republican primary could be waged on winning religious conservatives than the '08 GOP primary was, with Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee vying to become the movement's political standard bearer.

Like God-o-Meter said yesterday, the GOP's God Gap problem is not necessarily that the party's religious conservatives and more secular moderates are drifting further apart. It's that there's a shortage of figures who can unify those two wings going forward.

From today's LA Times:

The social conservatives and moderates who together boosted the Republican Party to dominance have begun a tense battle over the future of the GOP, with social conservatives already moving to seize control of the party's machinery and some vowing to limit John McCain's influence, even if he wins the presidency.

In skirmishes around the country in recent months, evangelicals and others who believe Republicans have been too timid in fighting abortion, gay marriage and illegal immigration have won election to the party's national committee, in preparation for a fight over the direction and leadership of the party.

The growing power of religious conservatives is alarming some moderate Republicans who believe that the party's main problem is that it has narrowed its appeal and alienated too many voters. They cite the aggressive tone of the McCain campaign in challenging Barack Obama, who has close to universal support from African American voters; as well as the push by many Republican leaders to clamp down on illegal immigration using rhetoric that has driven away Latinos.

A focal point of the GOP fight is the selection of the next chairman of the Republican National Committee -- the party's power center for fundraising and strategic thinking. With various factions already trying to build support for their favored candidates, some conservatives are warning that McCain cannot serve as the party's spiritual guide even if he becomes president. The Arizona senator, after all, has a history of breaking with the party's mainstream on such issues as immigration and campaign financing

Hat tip to Mark Silk.

A reader, Mark G, responds to God-o-Meter's New York Daily News piece about the growing God Gap between religious conservatives and the more secular establishment of the Republican Party: This post does not provide any solid reason to think the...

Months after rolling out pages for "American Indians for McCain and "Arab Americans for McCain," the McCain camp has added an "Americans of Faith" page to its web site. Not much to the page, just short explanations--none more than 105...

It's 8 days before Election Day and the GOP's pastor-in-chief, Mike Huckabee, is emailing constituents with a fundraising pitch that's silent on the party's presidential nominee, not a good sign for McCain: I want you to help me reach our...

The faith-based pro-Obama PAC Matthew 25 Network has posted its rejoinder to Focus on the Family's letter from 2012, which looked back on what Focus considers a disastrous Obama first term. Matthew 25 is also out with two Christian radio...

This piece originally ran at New York Daily News online: In the 2004 election, the pattern of religious voters supporting George W. Bush and secular voters backing John Kerry was so stark that it introduced a new term to the...

At Christianiy Today's politics blog, Sarah Pulliam points out that the 16-page letter from Focus on the Family offering a hypothetical look back on the first term of an Obama administration that's disastrous for religious conservatives blames young evangelicals for...

Yesterday, The Barna Group--the nation's premiere Christian polling firm--released a survey showing Barack Obama making significant inroads among evangelical and born again voters. Among born agains, here's Barna's breakdown: McCain 45% Obama 43% Undecided 10% This is a group that...

Inspired by conservative Christian radio host Janet Porter's (formerly Janet Folger) recent newscast from the day after President Obama's inauguration, Focus on the Family Action has sent a 16-page letter to constituents from the year 2012, recapping Obama's first term....

A reader, gmo2, responds to one of God-o-Meter's recent observations: "It strikes God-o-Meter that the firestorm of Palin criticism from elites--both liberal and conservative--is not fueled by Palin's apparently Biblical worldview but by the fact that that worldview appears...

This is from a new polling memo that The Barna Group, the country's preeminent Christian pollster, just sent out: One of the surprising insights of the research is the significant inroads Sen. Obama has made among the Christian community, particularly...

The conservative Judicial Confirmation Network is running this ad in Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Like a video released a few weeks ago by the conservative Catholic group Fidelis, the ad tells voters that there are more...

Listen to Focus on the Family founder James Dobson's brand new radio interview with Sarah Palin here. Dobson says he's praying for a miracle on Election Day, a thinly-veiled prayer for a McCain/Palin victory. What most struck God-o-Meter about the...

The new Pew poll shows that Obama has made slight inroads among white evangelicals, from 21-percent in September to 24-percent last week. That's roughly in line with how Democratic presidential candidates have performed, pre John Kerry. But the bigger...

From CNN's Political Ticker: While in Colorado Springs, the Alaska governor sat down for an interview with influential "Focus on the Family" founder James Dobson, who has long been critical of McCain but said in August that the selection of...