The most over-the-top effort to scare voters I’ve ever heard came at the Christian Coalition’s national conference in 2000. Dede Robertson, Pat’s wife, wanted her sympathetic audience to believe that an Al Gore presidency would literally destroy civilization.
In the space of just 10 minutes Robertson’s wife, who has just recently been named chair of the Board of Directors at her husband’s Regent University, managed to ramble over several topics, at times barely making sense. The multi-millionaire televangelist’s wife asserted that many people don’t want to work today because “why work when you can make more money on the dole?” She then asserted that Gore wants to take people’s cars away and force them to ride bicycles. (“The only bike I want to ride is in the exercise room,” she quipped.) She added that the very idea of Gore’s election frightens her.
“I just throw up my hands in horror,” she said. “We’d probably have sex in the streets, we’d have pornography everywhere. Our children would never be taught right from wrong.” Gore, she asserted, could get the chance to put “three more liberals” on the Supreme Court “if Jesus doesn’t come sooner.”
Even the Coalition’s faithful started fidgeting and looking at their watches, wondering when this strange, elderly woman would leave the stage. Dede wanted to scare her audience, but her pitch was too ridiculous for even the Christian Coalition. It didn’t matter anyway; this was a Republican crowd.
I kept thinking of Dede when I saw that the latest Republican direct mail message in West Virginia tells voters that Dems will ban public access to the Bible.
Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.
The literature shows a Bible with the word “BANNED” across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word “ALLOWED.” The mailing tells West Virginians to “vote Republican to protect our families” and defeat the “liberal agenda.”
Four years ago, I saw pretty radical Christian Coalition members roll their eyes at the notion that Al Gore would allow “sex in the streets.” This makes me wonder if anyone, anywhere, can really buy into the Republican notion that Dems will somehow “ban” the Bible. The GOP may have aimed a little too wildly on this one.
I appreciate the fact that Republicans generally like to play the public for fools — indeed, their agenda is dependent on it — but does the Republican National Committee genuinely believe that West Virginia voters will look at this mailing and think, “You know, maybe those Dems really will try and ban my Bible!”
Hate-mongering demagoguery is one thing, but I suspect the RNC may face a backlash over such incredible nonsense. They can lie to voters about Dems supporting a gas tax increase (which isn’t true) or Kerry supporting “socialized medicine” (which is false to the point of absurdity), but even uninformed voters have to realize that their Bibles are safe, no matter who the president is.
Two other quick observations.
First, this should be painfully obvious, but the fact that the Republican National Committee would associate itself with such an offensive smear is disgusting, even for them. If this came from some fringe 527, it’d be outrageous, but for the national party to accuse Dems of wanting to ban the Bible demonstrates just how far the RNC has strayed into lunacy. Ironically, Republicans call Dems “wild-eyed” because Dick Gephardt called Bush a “miserable failure.” If we’re “wild-eyed,” what’s the RNC?
And secondly, I’d like to point out how it took two centuries for the United States to come full circle. In the presidential race of 1800, John Adams accused Thomas Jefferson of wanting to ban the Bible. It didn’t work, of course; Jefferson won easily. Hopefully, that part of history will repeat itself, too.