{"id":9020,"date":"2006-11-09T14:49:31","date_gmt":"2006-11-09T19:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9020.html"},"modified":"2006-11-09T14:49:31","modified_gmt":"2006-11-09T19:49:31","slug":"dobson-lambastes-gop-for-abandoning-values-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/dobson-lambastes-gop-for-abandoning-values-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Dobson lambastes GOP for abandoning ‘values voters’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a helpful bookend for my last post. The few remaining GOP moderates believe Republicans lost because they’re too conservative<\/a>, while religious right leaders like James Dobson insist the party isn’t conservative enough<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson accused the Republican Party of abandoning values voters in the midterm elections — and paying the price by losing control of Congress. “What did they do with their power?” Dobson said in a statement. “Very little that values voters care about.” […]<\/p>\n

Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, issued a statement railing against the Republicans for letting their majorities slip away.<\/p>\n

“They consistently ignored the constituency that put them in power until it was late in the game, and then frantically tried to catch up at the last minute,” said Dobson, who argued that religious conservatives ensured GOP wins in 2004.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dobson added that Republican candidates are headed for a “black hole…if they continue to abandon their pro-moral, pro-family and pro-life base. The big tent will turn into a three-ring circus.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, as Dobson sees it, this week’s results prove his point. Republicans didn’t follow through on a religious-right agenda, the movement became disillusioned, and the GOP lost Congress. “Many of the values voters of ’04 simply stayed at home this year,” Dobson said.<\/p>\n

It’s a relatively compelling argument, except for one thing: he’s wrong.
\n
\nThe New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein noted<\/a> the voting trends as they were, not as Dobson wanted them to be. Indeed, as a percentage of the voting electorate, religious right voting went up, not down.<\/p>\n

Defying predictions of widespread disillusionment, white evangelical and born-again Christians did not desert Republican Congressional candidates and they did not stay home, nationwide exit polls show.<\/p>\n

When it came to turnout, white evangelicals and born-again Christians made up about 24 percent of those who voted, compared with 23 percent in the 2004 election. And 70 percent of those white evangelical and born-again Christians voted for Republican Congressional candidates nationally, also little changed from the 72 percent who voted for such candidates in 2004.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“It looks like the white evangelical base of the Republican Party pretty much held firm,” said John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said. “The white evangelicals did show up, and they did vote Republican.”<\/p>\n

So, Dobson is not only wrong, he’s making hollow threats. He’ll no doubt keep pushing GOP leaders, insisting that the party lost Congress because they lost “values voters,” but the actual results are, perhaps, the most dangerous scenario of all for Dobson & Co. — the religious right rank-and-file reminded Republicans that the Christian conservative base will back the party on Election Day, whether the party does anything for them or not. Dobson’s threats are full of bluster, but they’re hollow.<\/p>\n

Better luck next time, Jimbo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a helpful bookend for my last post. The few remaining GOP moderates believe Republicans lost because they’re too conservative, while religious right leaders like James Dobson insist the party isn’t conservative enough. Conservative Christian leader James Dobson accused the Republican Party of abandoning values voters in the midterm elections — and paying the price […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020","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=9020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}