Crunchy Defends the Ooogedy Boogedies from a Paleocon
Friday December 5, 2008
Another Republican heavyweight has fingered religious conservatives (or the oogedy-boogedies, as one conservative called them) as the culprits in the GOP loss. Jeffrey Hart (former aide to Nixon and Reagan and longtime contributor to National Review) writes: George W. Bush...
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McCain lost because his campaign miscalculated on the need to galvanize the religious right (RR). McCain did not need Palin. Anyone with a computer and google can find out just how far left the RR thought Obama was/is on abortion. His determination to sign FOCA if it ever sees the light of day was enough to send some into apoplectic fits. Some of these nutjobs now compare Obama to Hitler and his wife to Eva Braun.
So given the fact that the only two people with any chance of winning the White House were McCain and a man who is committed to killing babies (even those born alive!), it's difficult to understand what McCain thought he gained by asking an ignorant, inarticulate governor to be his running mate. There were other notable errors in judgment but that was the biggest of them all.
Dobson would still have voted for McCain despite his vow of abstinence and the RR would have followed suit. So while the blame lays at the feet of McCain, his calculus always included the RR. They were THE factor that led to his demise, despite all the other abysmal things happening in and around his campaign. And it's why Palin still remains in the spotlight. The RR could care less about good government.
Your defense of religious conservatives has less to do with scapegoating than with personal attacks. You defend them from name-calling and charges of craziness and stupidity. Fair enough. I agree that Palin was the biggest albatross around McCain's neck, but there was more to his loss than that. I don't defend the role of religious conservatives, and I don't scapegoat them. I just think they are increasingly irrelevant. Prop 8 aside, the tide of history favors LGBT equality. Roe is now safe, as all attention turns to reducing unwanted pregnancies as the most effective means of reducing the need for legal abortion. Abstinence-only sex ed won't wash anymore; half the states would rather turn down federal money that throw it down that rat hole any longer. We may, in fact, be at the beginning of a new era, when the predominant voice of faith in political discourse is not the conservative voice, but a more moderate and reasonable one. Praise God for all that.
Every time a Republican politician waffles on evolution and talks about "teaching both sides" they push educated urban professionals into the hands of the Democrats. The Republicans do this because they're taking care of the religious right which is hostile to the theory of evolution.
Also promoting abstinence-only sex ed while your own teenage daughter is pregnant has a similar dynamic.
It gives the feel of a party mired in ideology and unwilling to face reality.
I am not sure what Crunchy Con means by "Where is Jesus in any of that?"
Obama was always ahead of McCain, except for the first few weeks after Palin was selected.
Maybe God was in all of that. It was amazing that Obama survived the non-stop smears of the misunderstood Rev Wright, Bill Ayres, accusations of being a Muslim, etc, etc. He won against the powerful Clintons. The Republican smear and fear tactics used during Bush's campaign did not work with Obama. In fact, during the last couple of month, McCain's negative campaigning pushed people toward Obama.
Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life" says God has a plan for our life from the moment we are born.
None of us knows when certain things happened because of God's will. I am a logical educated person that rarely lets her emotions rule. The first time I ever saw Obama was during his acceptance speech after winning the Iowa primary. I had my first positive emotional reaction to a politician.
I researched everything about Obama and read his books. I had a strong feeling that God planned Obama's life to President. Obama had many varied life experiences that very few people ever experience. Obama's father leaving when he was two was probably a blessing. Most of Obama's half-siblings were emotionally scared by their angry and abusive father. Obama's father had also had an angry and abusive father. Obama's mother and grandparents were there during the first two years to protect him from his father.
Obama lived between two or more worlds and never fit into either world until he moved to Chicago. Obama was always the different from the others. He was the only English-speaking person in his classes in Indonesia. He was exposed to many different cultures with a mother that helped him learn to accept people that were different. One of his grade school teachers in Indonesia told a story about Obama making classmates that were fighting shake hands and play together. Obama say terrible poverty in Indonesia.
Maybe God know the Republicans have had many opportunities to make abortion illegal. Both Reagan and Bush flip-flopped and promised a Constitutional Amendment, but neither did anything after elected.
That's Funny repeated another false smear against Obama, "man who is committed to killing babies (even those born alive!" Despite all the smears, Obama won.
Maybe God was teaching another lesson, such as Palin's claim of the importance of her religion, while she told lie after lie about Obama. Palin's actions are what turn many people away from religion. Palin and McCain incited fear and potential violence against Obama during there campaign stops. The number of reports to the Secret Service went up substantially.
I pray that God will help Obama be the President we need. I also pray that God will keep him save for his little girls and wife.
If you noticed the Pew polls, the more regularly church attending people were less nativist in their attitudes. And the Religious Right leadership has never wanted to confuse its issues with the immigration issues. If anything, they have hoped that immigrants would be more favorable to their favorite issues. With regard to Prop 8, they were right - the Latinos skewed several more points for prop 8 than the Anglos, though the Asians were a disappointment, Prop 8 losing among them by the same 2 points as it had among the Anglos. The demand for "abortion rights" and "marriage equality" has not been led by immigrants - if anything, immigrants are the part of society least likely to be open to such ideas, with the exception of blacks.
Howard, which pew polls showed the regular church attenders less nativist? The ones I was looking at seemed to show the evangleicals more nativist. Perhaps it was the non-evangelical churchgoers who were less nativist.
That's Funny, I agree with your assessment. McCain should have taken the chance that the conservative animosity toward Obama would have been sufficient to energize the base. That way he could have done what he had to do to convince people he was the man to fix the economy -- including picking a moderate running mate if that's what it would have taken.
Steve
I have struggled with the definition of evangelical. After reading several articles, I find the definition to very confusing and inconsistent. I have asked a few people whether they belonged to a mainline church or an evangelical church. They were not familiar with the terms. Some churches that are considered mainline say they are an evangelical church.
How many people confuse the word evangelism with evangelical?
I wonder how many people understand the questions during surveys that determine if someone is an Evangelical. The questions from Pew data link, More Americans Question Religion’s Role in Politics Aug. 21, 2008:
http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/reports/summer08/topline.pdf
"ASK ALL:
RELIG What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in particular?
INTERVIEWER: IF R VOLUNTEERS “nothing in particular, none, no religion, etc.” BEFORE REACHING END OF LIST, PROMPT WITH: and would you say that’s atheist, agnostic, or just nothing in particular?]
43 Protestant (Baptist, Methodist, Non-denominational, Lutheran, Presbyterian,
Pentecostal, Episcopalian, Reformed, Church of Christ, Jehovah’s Witness, etc.)
25 Roman Catholic (Catholic)
2 Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/LDS)
* Orthodox (Greek, Russian, or some other orthodox church)
2 Jewish (Judaism)
1 Muslim (Islam)
* Buddhist
* Hindu
2 Atheist (do not believe in God)
2 Agnostic (not sure if there is a God)
1 Something else (SPECIFY)
10 Nothing in particular
9 Christian (VOL.)
* Unitarian (Universalist) (VOL.)
3 Don't Know/Refused (VOL.)
100
IF CHRISTIAN (RELIG=1-4, 13 OR CHR=1), ASK [N=2382]:
BORN Would you describe yourself as a “born-again” or evangelical Christian, or not?
BASED ON TOTAL
36 Yes
42 No
3 Don’t know/refused (VOL.)
* Undesignated
81% Christian (Respondents coded as “Something else” or “Don’t Know/Refused” in the religious affiliation question (RELIG) are asked if they think of themselves as Christian or not. An additional 2% of the public stated that they do think of themselves as Christian.)"
The same was not very big.
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