The religious right’s candidate

September 20, 2007

The religious right has been looking ahead to 2008 with some trepidation. 2006 clearly didn’t work out well for the religio-political movement, and things have only worsened in 2007, with the deaths of some religious right powerhouses and waning influence in DC.

The short-term task for the religious right is picking a credible GOP presidential hopeful, who will take their demands seriously, and have a realistic shot at taking office to implement the movement’s ideas. For a while, it looked as if Fred Thompson would be their guy. Richard Land, head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, said of Thompson, “It’s almost as if the man and the moment met.” Land added that support for Thompson was spreading “almost like a prairie fire” among religious conservatives, and he predicted that the actor/lobbyist/politician would start getting some major endorsements from religious right heavyweights.

If James Dobson is any indication, the thrill is gone.

James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week that he will not support Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson.

In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.

“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote.

“He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!”

Well, that’s not particularly subtle. But if the movement won’t go with Thompson, who’ll get the religious right’s support? Therein lies the problem: these guys just don’t have a candidate.

Dobson must get depressed looking at the list:

* Rudy Giuliani — The worst “family values” of any presidential candidate in recent memory is also “wrong,” as far as the religious right is concerned, on abortion, gays, stem-cell research, and immigration.

* John McCain — Despite his conservatism, the movement considers him a foe, particularly after the “agents of intolerance” talk of seven years ago. Jerry Falwell was going to help McCain with the religious right, but he died in May.

* Mitt Romney — Not only is he a Mormon, which the religious right finds offensive, but he supported abortion and gay rights up until five minutes ago.

Given the field, I think former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) is the most natural fit for the religious right, but Dobson & Co. are savvy enough to know that gambling on Huckabee could undercut the movement — if he isn’t going to compete for the nomination, and can’t break into the top tier, the Dobson crowd ends up looking weak if their favored candidate finishes fifth.

So, what’s the solution for the religious right? I don’t think there is one. The movement is in a jam, and I don’t see a way out. It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate group of people.

Post Script: Speaking of Dobson, Oliver Willis raises a good point: “For all the noise and fury about MoveOn “owning” the Democratic Party, the right and the MSM totally ignore the veto power the extremist theocon right holds over the Republican Party.”

That’s true. Everyone freaked out over “Betray Us,” but a greatest hits list from Dobson, Robertson, and others would make most pols blush. The double standard is frustrating.

Maybe they can dig up Billy Sunday! Seems like they want the GOP’s “Big Tent” to be a revival tent and they clearly need a firebrand preacher. Politicians need not apply.

  • It’s not that the right doesn’t have a GOP candidate, it’s that the top tier ones have been outed as hypocrites already and their Huckabee/Brownbacks aren’t going to break into the top tier. So sad (for them). They really need to bite the bullet and go with Mitt; if they get hung up on the mormon thing they’re idiots. (Oh, yeah, they are. Oh well.)

    The double standard is frustrating.

    No, the double standard is the natural result of the right owning an effective propaganda apparatus and our side, not. Blogs like this one help a little, but to break through you need teevee. They have Fox, a passel of christian right broadcasters, and, more or less passively, the kewl kidz klub inside the beltway. We’ve got blogs, Olbermann, and, somewhat, Jon Stewart. It’s not an even match.

  • So the American Taliban are realizing the Pocket Liners don’t have their best interests at heart? Aww. They’re so oppressed. Haha. Well, there’s always the Constitutional Party.

  • Huckabee (R) is the most natural fit for the religious right, but Dobson & Co. are savvy enough to know that gambling on Huckabee could undercut the movement — if he isn’t going to compete for the nomination, and can’t break into the top tier, the Dobson crowd ends up looking weak if their favored candidate finishes fifth.

    True, but if they have no one, they have little to lose on a gamble (oops – gambling is immoral. sorry.)

    If they could get on the same page and back Huckabee and in doing so move him into the top tier, that would actually show a fair amount of power, at least within the party. It is kind of a “swing for the fences” home run or strike out strategy, but were I advising them (and they surely haven’t asked me to), given the totality of their circumstances I think they have much more upside left to a Huckabee play then they have downside. They really cant go much lower.

  • The religious right will support who the TV tells them to support. The TV will say what it’s paid to say. One of the leading candidates could buy the most media with his personal wealth alone. It doesn’t matter what his positions on gays and abortion was five minutes ago. That history can be erased. The religious right will support the Mormon, and nominee Mitt Romney.

    It’s our job to smear Romney mercilessly with the most viscous personal attacks possible. He must be badly damaged by the time he faces Hillary, or we could lose a lot of the sisterhood votes to this guy’s good looks.

  • …Wait…did I say “viscous?” No viscous is the dogshit streaming down the Romney the animal abuser’s car windows. I meant our “smearing” of Romney should be vicious.

  • I worry about a 2008 election scenario where there is a Bloomber/Hagel independent ticket and Pope Dobson runs on the Xtian Fascist ticket.

  • Heh – Dobson’s big bugaboo – and the REAL reason he hate’s McCain – is right there, but he buried it as the third thing on his list of “reasons to hate Fred” when it’s actually the first:

    favors McCain-Feingold

    Dobson loathes McCain-Feingold more than he hates gays or “welfare mothers”. Anyone who supports it is on his short list – it seems like it’s more of a sin to support McCain-Feingold than to kill your spouse in Dobson-land.

    As for Huckabee – you’re probably correct. Although, if the Religious Right were to get behind Huckabee with all their might and push, the media coverage might propel him into the top tier. The moneymen don’t like Huck, but I haven’t seen any indication that the rank-and-file of the Religious Right are all that fired up over him either and I’m not sure why. The perception that he’s a loser right out of the gate would explain some of that reticence to support a Huck candidacy.

  • I’m not sure how much influence these aging leaders have anymore. I think fundamentalist Christianirty has been replaced by fundamentalist hate-ianity. Do you hate liberals? Do you hate Islamofascists? Do you hate gay marriage and abortion? Oh, did I mention liberals? Do you really, really hate them? The old fundy litmus tests are still in the mix in a vestigial form, but the “values voters” are really looking for an answer to the question “Do you divide the world into people like us and people who should be exterminated?”

  • “…can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?”

    Apparently Mr. Dobson is deaf as a post.

    So, what’s the solution for the religious right?

    I suppose “Shut up and go home,” is out of the question.

    I think Haik B pretty much nails it. The Talevangicals are whining now but they won’t stay home on election day. What I find strange (or would if anything these cretins did made sense) is that after their given their sulking fits when BushBrat didn’t carry through on his promise to ban gay marriage and abortion, they still get pissed when the current crop of GOPers won’t say the magic words.

  • This is why I wonder about Alan Keyes. Beyond the vast entertainment factor, is it possible the religious right could back him, vaguely hoping he’ll also bring in black voters?

    I feel like the religious right wants a tiebreaker, a surprise candidate – in short, a messiah they can all rally around really quick like before questions start.

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  • A more interesting question is what will the relgioius right do after the Republican party collapses and the U.S. becomes a one party state. Given current demographic trends in the U.S, the Republicans were going to become irrelevant aboutr 2030. President Bush’s incompetence has just sped up the process. Thus, in a few years there will not be a political home for the religious right so they will either drop out of politics so move over and start trying to influence the Democratic Party primary.

  • The extreme right-wing frothocrats never really have a candidate who truly supports their views. Only one who tells them what they want to hear until after the election and then ignores them until the next time.

    The thing is, they always seem to expect that anyone they support will actually share power with them once he gets in office. That will never, ever, happen. Their flocks are merely sheep to be shorn, yet still they keep coming back for more. Idiots.

  • Superdestroyer, @15,

    Nature abhors vacuum. Should the Repub party collapse, I dare say the Dem party would split into a more conservtive prong and a liberal one, to fill it. One super-party and a flock of powerless ones might have been viable in USSR and Eastern Europe, but I doubt it would “play” in the US, where people are used to a more balanced political landscape. The landscape is being trimmed and chipped at the edges but it’s still a long way off from being re-worked entirely and, short of a cataclysm (a revolution), I don’t see it happening. I don’t think US has an armed revolution in its future — near or far — because nobody here is truly desperate, the way people were in Russia or France. US has never been a powder keg just waiting to be lit.

  • Libra.

    Large portions of the U.S. function as one party states now. Just look at Mass, Maryland, Chicago, and DC. DC is 90% Democratic and that party is not spliting in two. I doubt any bloc currently in the Democratic party would want to spliter off and leave the growing black, hispanic, and government worker blocs behind.

    It is a more likely scenerio that the U.S. will become like Chciago or DC and the Democratic Party Primary will become the real election and the fight will be between blocs inside the Democratic Party. The quesiton then becomes who benefits from such an arrangment. Will the former Republican voters act as a moderator on the Democratic party or will the moveon.org types dominate since they do not have to worry about losing general election.

  • Hillary has a record of more church attendance than most of the Republican candidates, and she has demonstrated a superior commitment to marriage and family values, plus she seems to be a charitable and forgiving person, and she’s tried to do good by poor and less fortunate people, so if “christian right” people are serious about searching for a candidate who lives by christian principles, perhaps they could vote for her. Alternatively, I’d urge them to write in Jesus at all levels on the ballot.

  • So, what’s the solution for the religious right? I don’t think there is one.

    Gingrich? His sordid personal life is well known so he may be seen as having atoned for it.

    I predict Thompson will have lackluster fundraising numbers for Q3, no real movement in the polls beyond where he is now, and that Gingrich will thus feel “obligated” to throw his hat into the ring.

    Whether or not Dobson will actually support Newt is another question. If he is percieved to be in the top-tier, then I think Dobson will support him. Indpendent of his personal life, he’s been “right” on all the social policy issues. Not an ideal candidate, from their perspective, but better than the other top-tier choices.

  • I think that Mitt Romney is the only one of the current GOP candidates capable of beating any of the Dem. frontrunners in the general election because he’s actually intelligent, but it looks like the Mormon thing is killing him, especially when combined with his defensive campaign (since he changed his stances on so many issues).

  • The right move (heh) for the Theocrats is to not pick a candidate at all, sit this one out, wait for the landslide, then take over the party organisation with ‘see what happens when you don’t give us a candidate’ (the Nixon/Carter blueprint, essentially).

    Are they smart enough to do it, tho?

  • I’m late coming to this thread but I have to offer my prediction:

    The religious right will fall in line behind whichever Republican gets the nomination regardless of his position on social issues (or his religion).

    I have always voted Democrat based on the “lesser of 2 evils” concept and I believe the Christians will do the same. They are already in the habit of voting in Presidential elections and I believe they will continue in that habit.

    Moreover, the Evangelical agenda has been broadened to include more than simply regulating the sexual behavior of others, outlawing abortion and institutionalizing Christianity. It now includes (as mentioned above) immigration, flattening the tax code, tougher law enforcement (to clean up the mess left by the former) and the rest of the panoply of right-wing ideologies.

  • JTK – you nailed it.

    Doesn’t matter if the religious right has a candidate they like or not. They’ll still vote Republican.

  • I think Dobson is seriously considering endorsing Mitt Romney. Not that he approves of Mormonism, but most people (including Dobson) really looking at Romney don’t feel like he’s earned the flip-flopping labeled the media has given him as much as they say, and I think Dobson secretly trusts/likes Romney and believes Romney is a capable politician with some core values, even though Dobson abhores his religion. One thing is for sure: Romney is probably the only top tier contender who really believes in God (albeit one that is different is some respects from the Protestant version). Is a Mormon worse than an atheist? Because if “by their works you shall know them” all the other candidates are atheists and its a question people have to ask.

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