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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, May 23, 2008

Taking the Christians for granted

Two stories/thoughts today. 1) John McCain threw overboard not only John Hagee but also televangelist Rod Parsley for their controversial comments.

2) In the highly publicized McCain meetings with possible VP candidates this weekend, McCain's apparent shortlist contains none of the Christian Right's preferred. (Romney (Mormon,) Jindal (Indian/Catholic,) and Crist (rumored "not that there's anything wrong with that."))

I definitely think the Christian Right votes for McCain, but he seems to be giving them very little affirmative reason to be passionate about his campaign, and without the fundies, who are the volunteers and groundstaff for the fall?

posted by mikevotes at 7:06 AM

7 Comments:

  • Jindal's parents are Hindu but he became Catholic as a teenager, and is apparently very faithful. He says all the right things and I think the Christian conservatives could get behind him.

    But, I don't think it will happen. At 36 he's too young to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. He'll be a much bigger star in a few years.

    By Blogger Patrick, at 8:20 AM  

  • Frankly, I don't know much about him.

    Reading what I wrote, I perhaps didn't catch the nuance I was after.

    I didn't intend to cast anything on him, I don't know him, my point was that he's not exactly on the fundie shortlist, he doesn't have that long fundie resume of "culture wars" that they would be looking for.

    Maybe better said, he may be somebody they would accept, maybe even love, but if the goal is to mend that bridge, you would think it'd be a better known player.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:51 AM  

  • I'll update my post to include catholic.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:51 AM  

  • Agreed. Jindal would not be first on the list for Dobson etc, but I think they would find him acceptable.

    By Blogger Patrick, at 11:29 AM  

  • Yeah, after some introductions and extorted promises.

    Would the rank and file accept someone who doesn't look like them as their representative?

    My opinion is that to some degree the fundie base is as much about "people like me" identity politics, but that may just be my own biases against that group.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:32 PM  

  • all this business of preachers giving or withholding endorsements for politicians: if it goes well, it's neither here nor there; if it goes poorly, it's another argument for the separation of church and state.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:11 PM  

  • I think that's a big part of this discussion that's being ignored.

    Why in the hell are preachers making endorsements and why in the hell are they covered as important?

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:15 PM  

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