{"id":13744,"date":"2007-11-28T15:00:27","date_gmt":"2007-11-28T20:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13744.html"},"modified":"2007-11-28T15:00:27","modified_gmt":"2007-11-28T20:00:27","slug":"republicans-happy-to-accept-ill-gotten-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/republicans-happy-to-accept-ill-gotten-gains\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans happy to accept ill-gotten gains"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard John Edwards, on several occasions, emphasize that he’s not interested in winning the votes of racists and\/or misogynists. As the former senator put it in one recent debate, “If you don’t vote for Hillary because she’s a woman, or you don’t vote for Obama because he’s black, I don’t want your vote.”<\/p>\n

Among Republicans, there’s a slightly different standard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At a recent Huckabee event in Iowa, Glenda Gherkey, an evangelical from Evansdale, posed a question to the candidate.<\/p>\n

“I’m concerned a lot of Christians are thinking about the values issues and forgetting about the creator behind the values issues,” Ms. Gherkey said. “I guess I feel like this country and this world needs a president who would be able to pray to the God of the Bible and he would be able to hear his prayers.”<\/p>\n

She wondered, Would Mr. Romney’s prayers “even get through”?<\/p>\n

In response, Mr. Huckabee said he did not want to “speak for any other candidate or denigrate them at all.” But he added: “My views are what they are. I don’t think I’ve ever hidden where they come from.”<\/p>\n

He then tried to make a joke: “I’m glad you’ve made your choice for me. I don’t care why. I’m just glad you did.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s an interesting contrast, isn’t it? Edwards has said he doesn’t want racists or sexists to look to him as a suitable alternative. Huckabee is confronted with someone who obviously prejudiced against Mormons, and he’s happy to pick up support wherever he can.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, this trend has gone a long way in bolstering Huckabee’s campaign of late.
\n<\/p>\n

The religious divide over Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith that his supporters had long feared would occur is emerging in Iowa as he is being challenged in state polls by Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor who has played up his faith in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

Mr. Huckabee’s rise in Iowa — some recent polls now put him in a dead heat with Mr. Romney, who had led surveys for months — has been fueled by evangelical Christians, who believe Mormonism runs counter to Christian orthodoxy. […]<\/p>\n

Barbara Heki, 51, from Johnston, Iowa, who began volunteering for Mr. Huckabee over the summer…admitted that her evangelical faith also figured prominently in her choice.<\/p>\n

“Mormons spend two years of their lives as missionaries, preaching an anti-Christian doctrine,” she said. “I don’t want someone out there, if I can help it, who’s going to be acting on an anti-Christian faith as the basis of their decision-making.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A couple of thoughts. First, if Huckabee were really classy, he’d say something similar to Edwards: “If you don’t vote for one of my rivals because of religious bigotry, I don’t want your vote.” That’s definitely not going to happen.<\/p>\n

Second, Romney doesn’t exactly have the moral authority to denounce bigotry — he’s been engaging in plenty of his own lately.<\/p>\n

And third, as Andrew Sullivan concluded<\/a>, “When you see the abuse of religion in politics come back to haunt its architects, it’s hard not to feel the deepest pleasure. Religious intolerance couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of cynics, could it?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard John Edwards, on several occasions, emphasize that he’s not interested in winning the votes of racists and\/or misogynists. As the former senator put it in one recent debate, “If you don’t vote for Hillary because she’s a woman, or you don’t vote for Obama because he’s black, I don’t want your vote.” Among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}