McCain annoys religious right with Hagee/Parsley snubs

May 29, 2008

Nothing about John McCain’s outreach to radical, evangelical preachers has gone well. After securing the support of right-wing televangelists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley, the Republican presidential candidate has faced a series of headaches, with one nutty revelation about the preachers after another. Were it not for the media largely giving McCain a pass for his radical associations, it might have been a total disaster.

Once reporters did start paying attention to this, McCain had a choice — stand by the extremists (and offend sensible people everywhere) or reject the extremists (and offend their rabid religious-right followers). McCain gambled, probably correctly, that it was worth the backlash from the GOP’s theocratic base, and decided to dump Hagee and Parsley last week.

Ever since, the evangelical grumbling has gotten louder.

The candidate’s abrupt turnabout brought criticism not only from secular viewers, who questioned why he had aligned himself with controversial religious voices, but also from evangelicals, who said he may have alienated a powerful bloc of potential Republican voters.

“He wants us to support him, but as soon as his back was against the wall, he overreacted. He is now less likely to get the evangelical vote and will have a difficult time getting strong endorsements from other ministers,” said Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., founder and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, an evangelical group that advises ministers on political and policy issues.

“For McCain to have to repudiate these people is much worse than ever having their endorsement in the first place,” said Doug Wead, a political consultant who ranked 1,000 evangelical pastors for former president George H.W. Bush to court for endorsements. “If evangelical Christians feel this is an attack on them, even if they don’t agree with Parsley and Hagee or follow them, it could galvanize them against McCain.”

It’s the worst of both worlds. Sensible people are bothered by McCain reaching out and campaigning with certifiable lunatics in the first place, and unhinged religious-right activists are bothered by McCain throwing two of their high-profile leaders under the bus.

If only McCain had thought to Google these two before spending a year trying to win them over.

Star Parker, a fairly prominent far-right voice, devoted her syndicated column to the subject this week, arguing that this debacle will come back to haunt McCain.

John McCain wants Americans to elect him to provide tough leadership in a dangerous world. But when it just takes some mud slung from a few left-wing websites to drive him under a rock, you have to wonder. […]

John McCain says he’s a Reagan Republican. In a 1985 interview with Pat Robertson, then President Reagan said, “I am convinced this is a nation under God. And as long as we recognize that and believe that, I think He’ll help us.”

I wonder if John McCain believes it? I wonder if John McCain really wants to be president?

In my heart of hearts, I’m hard pressed to imagine this doing long-term damage. For the general public, the Hagee and Parsley stories were barely a blip on the radar, if voters heard about them at all. For the religious right, six months is a long time, and for far-right grassroots activists, simple partisanship will rule the day come November.

But in the meantime, it is entertaining to see this controversy cause McCain so much trouble.

Are they upset enough to run a 3rd party candidate?

Let’s hope so.

  • “I wonder if John McCain really wants to be president?” – Star Parker

    Maybe he does, but not enough to sell his soul to the likes of you.

  • Don’t count this one out for impact.

    My prediction is if the race is close, the religious right will stick with McCain. However I think that Obama is going to cream him in debates, and McCain has run a stunningly impressive and inept campaign.

    If it appears Obama is going to win, they’ll have no reason to stick with McCain, every reason to blame him, and good reason to go with a third-party as a protest vote. Expect that to be more likely if McCain further disappoints them.

  • I wonder how many in this huge group we refer to as evangelists in political discourse, really believe that we need to save Israel so the end-days scenario can take place. My guess is that there are a lot of people who consider themselves evangelical, or at least get lumped together with them, who also are happy to reject Hagee and Parsley’s statements. There’s also a cynical side of me that thinks these leaders are pragmatic enough to accept a political denunciation in exchange for, shall we say, more material gains. If so, this bellyaching is just a way to apply pressure.

  • Dragon Scholar (4)” Obama is going to cream him in debates

    This argument is very common. But I would argue that people who watch debates are both informed and partisan enough to have picked their candidate regardless of the results. Then, unfortunately, after the debates, the less-engaged voters merely hear who huffed, or said “there you go again” or something trivial like that. Can anyone remember a defining moment from the twenty-some odd Dem debates in which there was an actual substantive reason to choose a candidate?

  • I think that it will hurt him with some on the far religious right. But, I agree that most will forget about it or vote for him because he is the Republican. The part in which I am most interested is if/how they are able to spin the stuff. So far it looks like McCain and his campaign have capitulated relatively fast (on the preachers and lobbyists). I wonder if it is because they are so unaccustomed to criticism/negative press that they have rushed to put an end to it?

    It will be interesting to see if they are able to portray McCain as a victim and spin it Rove-like with accusations of liberal media bias — which I think could motivate the religious right as it has in the past. So far they have seemed pretty inept at campaigning (period).

    Also, it will be interesting to see if Americans become more astute/questioning of what they are told; I am thinking that a good example would be if they buy into the current, totally stupid attempt at spin, i.e., Obama gaffe about his uncle in WWII as a lie or as greater than or equal to McCain gaffes (Shiite vs. Sunni) and flip-flopping. And, if they buy into conservative arguments that Buchenwald really wasn’t that bad, as compared to Auschwitz, so somehow it discredits his uncle’s service? Wonder how that is playing with Jewish voters and/or independents that McCain is courting?

  • What we could be seeing is the first real tearing of the Republican Party in its current form. They made a deal with the Devil (in the form of right wing Christians), and they ended up losing control of them. But the Christians never really got anything for their votes. I don’t think this Hagee/Parsley controversy will have much effect on the election, but it is showing that the bloom may be off the rose as far as the Republicans and wackey christians goes. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in a broader sence.

  • …but picking Huckabee as VP will make all this evangelical unpleasantness go away. He may not have been short-listed before, but I’ll bet McS’s inner circle is buzzin’ with it this week.

  • I don’t agree that this will be unimportant. As I’ve been saying, the RRs give the Republicans not just votes, but eager volunteers, GOTV workers, and simple enthusiasm. At least they have in the past, led by their preachers (who take their tithes) and the tv evangelists (who they send even more of what is usually a small income — voluntarily because they — sadly — believe in what they are doing).

    Remember, these people have absolutely no ‘bullsh*t detectors.’ It is one of the things their religions necessarily discourage them from developing. (Yes, I am over-generalizing.) If you talk their language, they’ll follow you, and keep following you until you are indicted by the Feds or caught sniffing meth with your gay lover.

    They’ll even believe you when you say ‘well, we tried to [overrule Roe v Wade or prohibit gay marriage or restore prayer to the schools] but those nasty, godless Democrats blocked us.” It’s worked with Reagan, with Nixon, to a lesser extent with GHWB. (Ironically, the two Democratic Presidents since Nixon were much more religious than any of the Republicans other than GWB.)

    They even managed to ignore David Kuo’s revelations — he was one of them, but when he started questioning Bush’s sincerity, he stopped talking their language.

    Talking their language is the key, and McCain can’t do it. To them, McCain’s attempts sound like a Muzak version of “Piece of My Heart” sounds to someone who stood outside of a record store dancing to the released-that-day second BIG BROTHER album being piped into the street. (Yep, me.)

    They might still vote for McCain — though not as many as you’d expect. (Remember, we speak blithely about ‘voting for the lesser of two evils’ but for them, ‘evil’ has a different meaning. If they are convinced that McCain is ‘evil’ they aren’t going to vote for evil.) But they aren’t going to give up their free time, sit in a stuffy room stuffing envelopes or making phone calls for him.

    This is why I think the appearence on ELLEN — the same day he tossed the Disaster Pastors overboard — will be even more important. I’m sure that is up on YouTube already. Some pastors are going to use it against him — remember there have always been some who were consistently against McCain — pointing out that he ‘legitimized’ her — and by implication ‘the gay agenda’ — by appearing on the show, ponting out he did not denounce her, and finally pointing out that when he had an audience some of whom (they think) could have been convinced how wrong their support for gay marriage and Ellen’s marriage was, he didn’t even defend his position. He even wished her and Portia happiness instead of hell-fire. And his “touche” to when Ellen asked “does this mean you’ll walk us down the aisle’ was hardly the response they would have liked to hear.

  • Nothing about John McCain’s outreach to radical, evangelical preachers has gone well.

    If I wanted to make the opposite case, I’d say he used them to win the primary (where they are an asset) and he’s ditching them for the general (where they’re not). So there’s a case to be made that it has actually gone well for McCain (not a case I find on balance persuasive, I have to admit).

  • The TalEvan leadership is faced with a few difficult choices. They could loudly proclaim that no way no how will they vote for McCaniac and when he gets buried in November use this as proof that no ReThug candidate can win unless he kisses their ass.

    Of course after four years with a Democratic president the country will become that much less tolerant of ReThugs and WingNuts, especially since the trials might have just begun. They could gamble and hope McCain wins but then what? Four more years of ReThuglican rule will be nasty, brutish and not at all short. They don’t want to be standing next to McCain when the crap starts to fly, but they can’t stand to be away from the halls of power for that long.

    Poor things. Pity they don’t have anything else to do. Like practice what they preach or use all of their money to minister to the poor or anything.

  • Yes, it’s right to say that this will all blow over and be largely forgotten by November. After all, the US public has the attention span of a puppy. But I think it goes deeper than news cycles and whether or not McCain’s pastor flap hurts him among conservative evangelicals. What the far-right religious crowd has brought to the political arena in the past several elections is their enthusiasm, their organizational ability, and, to some extent, their money.

    So, first wooing Hagee and Parsley and then throwing them under the bus at the first sign of trouble won’t bring them over to the Democratic party. But IMHO a resentful Republican religious base won’t be as big a force for GOTV this fall, especially in a number of swing states.

  • Welcome to the latest edition of ‘Simple Answers to Stupid Questions’.

    Star Parker: “I wonder if John McCain really wants to be president?”

    Yes he does. That’s why he is twisting and turning to pander to everybody at once. Duh.

    This has been the latest edition of ‘Simple Answers to Stupid Questions’.

    By the way: jerry078, kindly stop spamming the site with your annoying self-advertising.

  • Crust (12):he used them to win the primary (where they are an asset) and he’s ditching them for the general (where they’re not)

    The problem with this argument is that Hagee endorsed McCain on 2/27. Parsley endorsed the day before that. The next primary was March 4, which is when McCain went over the magic number to lock the nomination. So essentially, they didn’t endorse him until it was time to come together for the GE.

  • Agreed Steve. Too much importance is being placed on the “impact” these fanatics have on elections. They are minuscule though they like to believe they are influential. A preacher thinks the whole world is not only listening to him but shares his insight. Wrong.

    It is in their nature to condemn and they always will…loudly. They are basically insignificant as a voting group and these two “leaders” (Hagee and Parsley) are insane and most people see that. McCain was so busy pandering he just didn’t care and if the press hadn’t made it an issue never would have rejected them. Indifference to them is the best way to reduce their influence but still never turn your back on ’em. Really, they are inconsequential to influencing an election. I’m glad to see you also see them as unimportant.

  • Why didn’t St. John just google Hagee and Parsley (sounds like a Z-list country-western group)? Well, that’s easy. He, like W, doesn’t have a clue what “the google” is!

  • The lesson to be learned from McCain’s and Obama’s “preacher” problems is that all chaismatic preachers have very controversial views, whether the preacher is white or black. Of course, the white preachers are treated with a great deal more respect by politicians and the media. But they all preach messages of hate towards one group or another.

  • McCain didn’t see Hagee or Parsley as pastors or leaders or even human beings (“that’s because they’re not” “I heard that.”). He saw them as means to an end. Get their support, you get the support of alllll their followers. And that’s a problem plenty of politicians have, and a mistake plenty of politicians make. In a perfect political world, politicians would just take care of business, and endorsements would come from those who truly believe in them. I know, that will NEVER happen. But it should. Because then, if a politician tried to curry support with a leader, maybe the followers would wonder why the politician was trying so hard, SHUN that politician (and their leader) and look for politicians and leaders with more integrity. And if a religious or community leader endorsed a candidate, you’d feel more confident that it’s an honest opinion, and not one borne out of some serious ass-kissing.

    Yeah, integrity in politics. Might as well ask for Michelle Malkin to get that stick out of her butt while I’m at it.

  • He is now less likely to get the evangelical vote and will have a difficult time getting strong endorsements from other ministers,” — Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr

    I loved that quote, because the subtext here seems to be: “because they’re *all* whackos in equal measure and none of them could stand the sort of scrutiny the unhinged left would submit them to”
    I’ve always thought all of them were nutjobs but it’s nice to have one’s suspicions confirmed and by a nutjob bishop, no less.

  • Late, but I feel this is partly a result of the Wright outrage. Live by the sword…

  • ITS strange people are concerned about muslims taking over the world.look who they are trying to put in the W.H. duh;;;;;;;;;;;

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