lily
05-29-2007, 11:30 PM
Seems like they are stuck between a rock and a hardplace. Can Thompson be their savior? (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18881808?from=rss/site/newsweek/?rf=nwnewsletter)
In Search of a Political Savior
Evangelicals aren't flocking to the GOP front runners, and don't know where
to turn.
By Eve Conant
Newsweek
June 4, 2007 issue - They'd come to pay their respects to the past, but the
talk soon turned to the future. The country's leading conservative
Christians convened in Lynchburg, Va., last week to bury the Rev. Jerry
Falwell, the televangelist who, decades ago, fused politics and religion and
helped define the GOP as the party of the faithful. Now, as the mourners
straggled out of the church, some wondered aloud about the 2008 presidential
election. Did any of the 10 Republican candidates deserve their coveted
blessing? "Ralph Reed asked me who I was interested in," says Richard
Viguerie, the longtime conservative political consultant. Viguerie had no
good answer. He turned the question back on Reed, a Republican operative who
once led the Christian Coalition. Reed shrugged his shoulders. "There's just
nobody out there," says Viguerie.
Surveying the crowded GOP field, many evangelicals are feeling unloved, and
unsettled. Conservative Christians were crucial in sending George W. Bush to
the White House—and were even more important to his narrow re-election in
2004—but many evangelical leaders complain that he hasn't shown much thanks,
and their devotion to the born-again president is waning. They are
disappointed that he has abandoned his election-year promise to push for an
anti-gay-marriage amendment, even as Dick Cheney is posing for pictures with
the newborn son of his lesbian daughter and her partner. Though Bush talked
a lot during the campaign about the "culture of life," many Christian
conservatives do not believe he uses his bully pulpit enough to denounce
abortion. Disappointment in Bush is now translating into deep skepticism
among evangelicals about the men who are vying to succeed him. So far, the
leading GOP candidates leave them cold. Front runner Rudy Giuliani is
tainted by his messy divorces and support for abortion rights—a deal breaker
for Christian conservatives. McCain is against abortion, but evangelical
leaders haven't forgotten that he denounced them as "agents of intolerance"
back in 2000. His campaign-reform bill is also deeply unpopular among
religious interest groups.
The others aren't any more appealing. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt
Romney looks presidential and says all the right things, but many
evangelicals say his rightward drift on the issues smacks of political
opportunism. "Sure, Ronald Reagan changed his mind on abortion," says
Viguerie. "But not on 25 other things, too." Another issue is his Mormonism.
The Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land joined a dozen other
evangelicals in a private meeting at Romney's home last October. "I told
him: you need to give the 1960 Kennedy speech, when he said, 'I'm not a
Catholic candidate, I'm the Democratic candidate'." But so far Romney has
failed to convince evangelicals that he is one of them. Some in the
religious right talked up Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee, sturdy
conservatives with impeccable Christian credentials. But their campaigns
have gone nowhere.
In Search of a Political Savior
Evangelicals aren't flocking to the GOP front runners, and don't know where
to turn.
By Eve Conant
Newsweek
June 4, 2007 issue - They'd come to pay their respects to the past, but the
talk soon turned to the future. The country's leading conservative
Christians convened in Lynchburg, Va., last week to bury the Rev. Jerry
Falwell, the televangelist who, decades ago, fused politics and religion and
helped define the GOP as the party of the faithful. Now, as the mourners
straggled out of the church, some wondered aloud about the 2008 presidential
election. Did any of the 10 Republican candidates deserve their coveted
blessing? "Ralph Reed asked me who I was interested in," says Richard
Viguerie, the longtime conservative political consultant. Viguerie had no
good answer. He turned the question back on Reed, a Republican operative who
once led the Christian Coalition. Reed shrugged his shoulders. "There's just
nobody out there," says Viguerie.
Surveying the crowded GOP field, many evangelicals are feeling unloved, and
unsettled. Conservative Christians were crucial in sending George W. Bush to
the White House—and were even more important to his narrow re-election in
2004—but many evangelical leaders complain that he hasn't shown much thanks,
and their devotion to the born-again president is waning. They are
disappointed that he has abandoned his election-year promise to push for an
anti-gay-marriage amendment, even as Dick Cheney is posing for pictures with
the newborn son of his lesbian daughter and her partner. Though Bush talked
a lot during the campaign about the "culture of life," many Christian
conservatives do not believe he uses his bully pulpit enough to denounce
abortion. Disappointment in Bush is now translating into deep skepticism
among evangelicals about the men who are vying to succeed him. So far, the
leading GOP candidates leave them cold. Front runner Rudy Giuliani is
tainted by his messy divorces and support for abortion rights—a deal breaker
for Christian conservatives. McCain is against abortion, but evangelical
leaders haven't forgotten that he denounced them as "agents of intolerance"
back in 2000. His campaign-reform bill is also deeply unpopular among
religious interest groups.
The others aren't any more appealing. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt
Romney looks presidential and says all the right things, but many
evangelicals say his rightward drift on the issues smacks of political
opportunism. "Sure, Ronald Reagan changed his mind on abortion," says
Viguerie. "But not on 25 other things, too." Another issue is his Mormonism.
The Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land joined a dozen other
evangelicals in a private meeting at Romney's home last October. "I told
him: you need to give the 1960 Kennedy speech, when he said, 'I'm not a
Catholic candidate, I'm the Democratic candidate'." But so far Romney has
failed to convince evangelicals that he is one of them. Some in the
religious right talked up Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee, sturdy
conservatives with impeccable Christian credentials. But their campaigns
have gone nowhere.