For months, all you heard was that the only chance for a Republican victory in November would be through an act of God. Conservative Evangelicals prayed for it to rain on Barack Obama's parade. They prayed that it would rain in Denver, Colorado on Thursday night when Barack Obama accepts the nomination to be the candidate of the Democratic Party for President of these United States. God didn't just refuse their selfish and misguided pleas; He struck them with a vengeance for their insolence.
An expert panel moderated by Amy Sullivan has just kicked off the week of discussions at The Big Tent. Just as the first event of the convention was a religious service, the first panel deals with faith and politics. Time magazine's Amy Sullivan is moderating, and participants are MoveOn alum and New Organizing Institute founder Zack Exley, Beliefnet's Steven Waldman, Faith In Public Life's Ron Stief, Catholics In Alliance For the Common Good director Alexia Kelley, and Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith are discussing the ferment in the religious community as people of faith embrace a broader, common good agenda.
Video is streaming at Faith In Public Life, and will be on youtube later. Have a look when you grab the time. It's a quality analysis of the changing face of faith and politics. Over there I'll be blogging about the full slate of religion and politics events in Denver this week, and cross-posting here as well.
John McNicotine is now for the tobacco lobby after years of working against it. He not only opposes the cigarette taxes he used to support but also opposes FDA regulation of the tobacco industry after years of supporting it. McNicotine is an ex-smoker and should understand just how addictive nicotine is, and he even acknowledged the exceptionally high death rate for tobacco users when he joked that cigarette exports to Iran were part of his plot to kill Iranian citizens. For McNicotine to cave in to the tobacco cartel is the ultimate flip-flop:
http://www.boston.com/...
Why has McNicotine caved in to the interests of the tobacco drug cartel? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with hiring tobacco lobbyist Charlie Black as his senior adviser. Move along folks. There's nothing to see here:
http://firedoglake.com/...
Now let's use the traditional Rethug "moral values" and "sanctity of life" frames against McNicotine! There's more in the flip.
This is my first diary, and I have been terrified of posting it, but not EVERYONE who is Christian is in love with McCain. At least not the true ones anyway.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
UPDATE: Okay, I'll hold up a tip jar. I just didn't think anyone would be paying attention!
Everyone seems to agree that John McCain had a very good night on Saturday. Some will inevitably play it up to be more than it was, others will try to minimize its importance as simply a perfectly designed forum for McCain’s speaking style, where he was addressing an audience that was more of his base than any other "debate" type event we’ll see this year.
I’m sure McCain will manage over the coming weeks to "gaffe away" any positive gains he made with independents and undecided voters this weekend, but that is not what worries me, and for the first time in six months, I’m genuinely worried about Obama’s prospects in November.
The intro to yesterday's "Civil Forum" featuring both major presidential candidates by the Reverend Rick Warren called on the "need to restore civility" and "stop demonizing" each other in America. That's one example of how the forum was supposedly on McCain's turf (an evangelical Christian church) but stylistically was on Obama's (a post-partisan end to boomer generation polarization). This forum simply would not have been possible four years ago... nor twenty years ago. And I doubt very much that any other prospective Democratic nominee would have attended it, nor have walked away unscathed as Obama did yesterday...
I think Obama did very very well. He was DEEP in the enemy camp, these people care about 2 things.... outlawing abortion and outlawing gay marriage.. Obama was gracious, smart and at times funny. He faced them down brilliantly... the BEST he could have expected was 1) NOT lose any support, 2) To show that he is not a Muslim and 3) To maybe have some less conservative Christians give him a serious look..... and I think he accomplished all three of those goals.
from the theocrat gathering last night. He had no business appearing before a crowd that doesn't believe in separation of church and state, is anti-choice and anti-gay rights. Did he think he would win them over? Did he think he would get a better reception than McCain? Did he think he would get brownie points for showing up? Whatever he thought is overriden by the terrible precedent set by having the presidential candidates of each party a joint appearance by presidential candidates before a religious crowd, not to mention a fundamentalist crowd.
The bitterness between Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Mike Huckabee never really died. Romney, favored by Bush, was the poster-child of the Club For Growth(which Huckabee called the Club For Greed). Huckabee was the champion of the "value voters" and the Fair Tax. Somewhere in between them was John McCain, ceding Iowa to the Romney/Huckabee struggle while he focused on Iowa. Then the Huckaboom of Iowa happened, that night of the underdogs(can't forget Obama), and then the resurgence of "the Maverick" in his beloved New Hampshire. Out-maneuvered, Romney would cut his loses after Super Tuesday at CPAC and move to set himself up as the team player. Mike Huckabee fought on for another month, setting himself up as the winner of the silver medal, and then ambushing Mitt Romney's Veep-prospects when the timing was right.
And Huckabee is just getting started on solidifying his place in American politics.
The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, ...
...We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.
, but one wonders what happened to the "rare" part of "safe, legal, and rare". Bill Clinton invented that--the best thing he ever said--; so if unlike the 2004 platform, the '08 platform doesn't even include "rare", Dems will look like they're
less sexually restrained than Bill Clinton.
Is that something the party can afford these days, especially after John Edwards' zipper problem? Probably not.
--And "We also recognize..." is sort of tepid language, I must say. Again, where's "rare"? It was there in the '04 platform...
The Obama campaign's fight to define our candidate as the only one in the mainstream of American values is swinging into gear. Not only are campaign surrogates carefully using language to position Barack Obama as the true values candidate, but the candidate may soon benefit from his participation in forums not normally associated with the Democratic candidate for president.
This strategy, if successful, will make John McCain's uphill battle this fall even steeper. More on it below the fold.
A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.
Yeah, I know you don't want to hear it. Some people here would rather sit around and snicker at George W. Bush saying something else stupid--this time while he's in China. Think Progess has a pretty good summary, including the video that was pulled from YouTube because of a third party ownership claim.
Worthless stuff is usually not worth claiming. But, that's not the only reason I'm going to give you an opportunity to reconsider whether what Bush said was stupid or part of an orchestrated campaign. That NBC interrupted its coverage of the Olympics with this vignette may or may not be significant.
This is a follow up to my diary from yesterday on the evangelicals and the democrats. The main point of that diary was to show that there is a good chance to peel away some of W's base in the evangelical community. Maybe not win it, but certainly dent it. However, I was interested in the comments and have noticed this in other diaries--it looks like many Kos-types are either against established religion or don't want religion to play a role in the election/governance.
Never thought I would write this, but there is a very good opportunity this year for Democrats to gain some ground with evangelical voters. The keys are to appeal to those who look to the common good rather than to pure individualism, which seems to be the trend among younger evangelicals. The main drawbacks are the issues of abortion and gay rights, but, given McCain's lackluster support, especially if he choses Romney as a running mate. This is fertile territory, which, if handled properly, could affect races in the South.
McCain’s problem looks to be most pronounced among Protestant Latinos, who had seemed to be the GOP’s doorway into the Hispanic population. From 2000 to 2004, Protestant Latinos increased their share of the total Hispanic electorate from 25 percent to 32 percent, in large part because of Bush’s evangelical outreach and strategic microtargeting of the community. Even as turnout increased, support for Bush among the group rose from 44 percent in 2000 to 56 percent in 2004.
The Pew poll, however, shows that only a third of Protestant or Evangelical Hispanics intend to vote for McCain, while 59 percent support Obama — who also enjoys a 50-percentage-point lead among Catholic Latinos, long a solid bloc of the Democratic coalition.
While McCain and Bush have similar views on most social issues, including abortion, McCain's candidacy may mark a return to an era of blue-blooded Republicans less vocal about their religious beliefs. Barack Obama, by contrast, speaks comfortably and frequently about his faith.
