There was an interesting item over the weekend from the AP on Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, but there was one point in particular that warrants some additional detail.
[Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.)] stood by his claim that Dobson’s ministry has become an arm of the Republican Party.
Dobson, who insists his organization backs only issues not parties or candidates, isn’t about to back down.
Here’s the funny part: Dobson’s largely right. If Focus on the Family has become an arm of the GOP, it’s because the GOP went to Dobson, not the other way around.
I’m not defending Dobson — far from it, I firmly believe Dobson is a radical leader with a dangerous agenda — but the AP report reminded me that political observers should remember that there are actually two types of religious right leaders: partisans and ideologues. Dobson, who’s far more interested in issues than party, is definitely part of the latter.
TV preachers like Pat Robertson are just as extreme in their beliefs as Dobson, but at their core, they’re just Republicans who think it’s fun to get invited to sit at the big kids’ table. Robertson has always gone out of his way to help Republican candidates, even those he disagrees with on important issues, to help advance the party’s broader agenda. In the Christian Coalition’s infamous voter guides, for example, Robertson would promote GOP moderates by skipping over issues that might anger the religious right’s rank and file. It’s always been more important to a guy like Robertson to elect Republicans than it was to achieve ideological purity.
Dobson’s different. The conventional wisdom throws Dobson in with characters like Robertson and Falwell, which makes sense to the extent they’re part of the same movement, but they’re not cut from the same cloth and they approach their leadership roles in entirely different ways.
In 1996, for example, the Bob Dole/Jack Kemp ticket wasn’t doing much to electrify the far-right GOP base. Robertson was touting the ticket on his 700 Club program and Ralph Reed was hobnobbing on the floor at the Republican National Convention. What about Dobson? He not only steered clear of Dole/Kemp, he didn’t even vote Republican, opting instead for the radical Constitution Party.
Two years later, when Newt Gingrich omitted any reference to social conservative issues in his Contract with America, and paid little attention to the movement’s biggest issues, Dobson threatened to pull evangelicals out of the Republican Party altogether.
Indeed, these kinds of threats are a common staple of Dobson’s method. In January, Dobson helped organize some like-minded activists to write a letter to Karl Rove — and then leak it to the New York Times — explaining that the religious right would do nothing to help Bush’s drive to privatize Social Security unless the White House “vigorously” championed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
The religious right, for the better part of the ’80s and ’90s, wouldn’t dream of threatening Republicans this way. The idea was to be “team players” in order to get the party to take evangelical seriously. Dobson has no interest in going along with the team because that leads to compromise — and Dobson doesn’t do compromise.
Robertson sees his GOP allies as his buddies at the country club who invite him to cool parties; Dobson sees his GOP allies as a means to a right-wing end. Robertson wants a seat at the table; Dobson wants to own the table and will let Republicans sit at it if it suits his interests.