Huckabee Has Not Learned His Lesson, His Extreme Executive Clemency, Those Lyin’ Mormons, and more…
The day yesterday began with Hugh Hewitt claiming the high ground for Evangelicals in light of the Huckaboom, more and more becoming the Huckabust. Said Hugh:
Huck’s ideological confusion –the newly minted anti-illegal immigration policy, the anti-Bush salvos, and now the “ruling class” nonsense– are improvisations designed to add numbers to what he considers his evangelical base, but that base that won’t stand by and be played for fools. Evangelical voters care deeply about foreign policy and economic growth as well as abortion and traditional marriage. Huckabee is selling them short with this parade of populist appeals, and he will anger them with his attacks on Bush and the Administration’s foreign policy.
[...]
This is a good summary of the Huck 2.0 pitch, but Heilemann is wrong –more about Evangelicals than Huckabee– when he says of Huck: “On topics of faith, he readily hits that dog-whistle pitch only Evangelicals can hear.”
The idea that evangelicals run to the sound of the whistle of one of their own is widely shared among the pundit class, but it is the worst sort of stereotyped bigotry, the same sort of assumption that famously prompted a Washington Post reporter in 1993 to brand evangelicals as “poor, uneducated and easily led.”
As support of Hewitt’s contention regarding MSM stereotypical thinking in re: Evangelicals, check out this NYTimes piece. And yet, we see Huck playing the Jesus card overtly again. Check out Huck’s latest ad in which he appears to set politics aside (yeah, uh-huh) and says the important thing this season is “the celebration of the birth of Christ.”
(Lowell: Is it just me, or is your gag reflex acting up too?)
First of all, as much as my house will work very hard to keep our focus in this proper place this holiday season, Huckabee’s ad is identity politics once again; it goes too far. Recall if you will the criticism Romney has taken for forgetting to mention atheists in The Speech – how much heat should Huckabee take for overtly mentioning Jesus in a political ad? In my book – a whole bunch.
How do you think it is going to play if he says such things in the White House? How well will negotiations with Saudi Arabia or Pakistan go if our President is publicly calling upon the name of Jesus? Take it from someone who has traveled to a few places where that name is not terribly welcome – they will not go well.
The more important question is “Are Evangelicals worthy of the faith that Hewitt puts in them?” The answer is complex. As with most generalizations, some are and some are not– it is all in the numbers. There was clearly a “flocking effect” to Huckabee in the wake of the Value Voters Conference. Actually, lemmings might be a better analogy; this observer could find no reason for his sudden rise other than religious identity.
Well, being a lemming is not so bad as long as you do not dive off the cliff after the crowd. The pull back in the polls is a positive sign. We’ll see what happens from here. I am not the optimist Hugh is, but I am hopeful.
Although . . .
John McIntyre seems to think the Huckaboom has helped Romney. I am not sure I analyze it in quite the way McIntyre does, but I do think that Huckabee overplaying the religion card has taken some religion heat off of Romney.
But at what cost? I contend that by the time this is over, the cost will a marginalization of at least a portion of the Evangelical vote. Now, much as I have come to like Romney, my goal on this blog has not been his election, but the preservation of Evangelical influence. Will we through this process sort the “good” Evangelicals from the bad? If so, it has been a good thing. Or will we simply have punted our influence away? Obviously Hugh Hewitt thinks the former – I think the jury is still out.
Lowell adds: Our friend and blogfather Mr. Hewitt links to this NBC News investigative story on Huckabee’s granting of “1,023 commutations and pardons in 10 years as governor, twice as many as his three predecessors combined.” Says NBC’s Lisa Myers:
Prosecutors say many of those freed claimed to have found religion while in prison and were backed by ministers. At the time Huckabee acknowledged that his believe in redemption factored into his decisions.
Now, John and I try to avoid saying “we told you so,” but there is an important lesson in what seems to be emerging here. We have argued time and time again that one danger of running as the Mormon candidate, or the Presbyterian candidate, or the Catholic, or the Evangelical, is that there’s a danger that the candidate will be seen as implementing his or her religious faith through decisions made as an officeholder. Now the MSM is suggesting that Huckabee may have had a soft spot for criminals convicted of heinous crimes who claimed to have found Christ while incarcerated– including the now-infamous Wayne Dumond. Indeed, there seems to be evidence that Huckabee is guilty of exactly that. Is Huck’s approach to public service through elective office doing any favors to religious values voters? I don’t think so.
You See, We Have REAL Problems on Our Hands…
A U.S. judge ordered the Secret Service on Monday to disclose records of visits by nine prominent conservative Christian leaders to the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence.
The ruling, in response to a legal watchdog group’s suit, could shed light on the influence leaders like James Dobson of Focus on the Family have had on President George W. Bush’s administration. It may also affect legal efforts to force the release of visiting records of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other similar cases.
“We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact,” said Executive Director Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed the case.
Can anyone fail to see the overtone of conspiratorial theory lying in there? Now think about it, does a flocking to Huckabee based on religious identity feed such theories or detract from them? What kind of lawsuits do you think a Huckabee White House is going to see, with his overt mentions of Christ and is status as an actual minister, if this is going on with the Bush White House? I could see a White House unable to act mired in litigation from all sorts of corners.
A Broader View…
The Coloradoan has a piece on clergy endorsements. Great set-up, little information, vitally important question. SIGH.
Speaking of vitally important…
Stuart Rothenberg thinks Mitt’s Mormon problem is insoluble.
Indeed, the gushing reviews once again demonstrate that many observers still don’t fully understand why evangelical Christian voters are having a problem with Romney’s Mormon religion. It’s not merely that they disagree with his church on matters of theology or, as some may believe, that they are intolerant. The issue is far more fundamental than that.
Many evangelicals won’t vote for a Mormon for president of the United States for the same reason that almost all Jews would not vote for a candidate (for any office, I expect) who is a member of Jews for Jesus. For Jews, the Jews for Jesus movement is a deceptive attempt to woo Jews to Christianity under the guise of remaining true to Judaism.
Likewise, for evangelicals, Mormons are not “Christians” in the sense that evangelicals understand the term, and by portraying themselves as “Christians,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deceptively wooing evangelicals or potential adherents away from Christianity. [Emphasis added.]
Rothenberg here makes one of the best arguments to date against Evangelicals who cannot support Romney because of his faith while attempting to explain if not defend them.
There is not an Evangelical out there worthy of the name that is not a huge supporter of Jews for Jesus, and if you tell them JfJ is “deceptive” they will look at you like you are nuts. “Hogwash,” they will say, “Jesus completes the entire process of the ancient nation of Israel. He is the culmination of Old Testament prophecy – the Messiah. There is nothing deceptive about it.”
But wait! – That is pretty much what Mormons think about creedal Christianity in relationship to Mormonism.
So here’s the thing. Imagine Jews everywhere refusing to vote for a creedal Christian, let’s say Mike Huckabee, because they think Christians are deceptive. Imagine Joe Lieberman running against Huckabee, complete with an ad declaring the real reason for this holiday season is to remember the Maccabean revolt.
Not a pretty picture, is it? So why are we doing it to Mormons?
Lowell: I have a dog in this fight. It is only since I began writing for this blog that I became aware of the notion, advanced by some Evangelicals with varying degrees of ignorance or malice, that Mormons are a bunch of liars.
Let’s play my “change the target” game. How do these sentences sound:
- Jews are a deceptive bunch; they’ll say anything to get you to buy their wares.
- Catholics don’t think for themselves. They’ll do whatever their priest tells them to do.
- Evangelical preachers are just a bunch of snake oil salesman. They’re out for money and just want your “prayer offering.”
Of course no one but a hardened bigot would accept those statements. Just to make sure we have our terms straight, a bigot is
a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
No, I am not calling anyone names, just urging a little self-examination in certain quarters.
Posted in Electability, Religious Bigotry | 4 Comments » | 
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steve1 on 18 Dec 2007 at 2:26 pm #
I have read your blog with interest for several months, and this is the first time I have commented. I have also read an article by Frank Pastore (http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankPastore/2007/12/18/christian_angst_over_a_romney_presidency?page=full&comments=true) where he states a similar opinion about questions of religion and being considered a “bigot”. I find that he is very honest about the issue, in that he says that his biggest concern is that a Romney presidency will further the “advance their false religion into the world” (his words).
While my feelings about the LDS church will remain anonymous, I find this one reason why we shouldn’t be talking so much about religion. Just to underscore his point, the issue is not about one church versus another, but about someone’s qualifications for president. When we (personally) discredit someone BECAUSE of his religion, we are opening the door for ALL religions to be banned, because of the same fear. I hope that people will see that THIS is the reason why I want all of us to adhere to Article VI, and not because I think anyone is a bigot or because I am afraid of being called a bigot.
CarlH on 18 Dec 2007 at 3:32 pm #
Frank Pastore holds forth on “[Real] Christian Angst Over a Romney Presidency.”
Without a shred of evidence, and despite multiple explicit disclaimers, it’s all about those “wascally”, double-dealing Mormons lying their way into legitimacy. Is paranoia too strong a word here?
coltakashi on 18 Dec 2007 at 6:10 pm #
Rothenberg has a point, namely that many Evangelical Christians have been indoctrinated by their ministers that not only Mormonism, but some other Christian churches as well, are “deceptive” when they call themselves “Christians.” As a Mormon, I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me on their idiosyncratic definition of what “Christianity” means. Like Edward A. Guest, I am happy to “draw a circle that draws him in.”
The problem comes when they (a) tell me that I don’t know what I am talking about when I say that I believe I am a Christian and (b) tell me I am actually lying when I say it. It is one thing to disagree with other people’s religious beliefs or conclusions, but quite another to call them ignorant liars. They assume they have proprietary knowledge of my personal thought processes, things which no rational person can properly assert. (It’s sort of satanic, isn’t it, to say you can read people’s minds?) Yet the standard story told by all too many Evangelical ministers is that, as soon as you hear that a person is a Mormon, you can write him off as stupid and/or evil, without examining his actions and accomplishments, like leading the Olympic games out of a mire of scandal and misrepresentation and into success and solvency.
That is why it irritates some Evangelicals so much to hear Mitt Romney aver that he believes “Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind,” as he did in his speech. One would think that any Christian would be happy to hear another person affirm this statement, to have an ally in supporting the application of Christ’s teachings to public policy and defend morality against secularism and atheism. Yet the reaction of many Evangelical ministers (as quoted in the press) is that Romney is not allowed to say that, that it irritates them no end that Romney does not confess to being a heathen, that Evangelicals have a copyright on that phrase, and they will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who uses it without their authorization. They act like they are the MCA of the Bible, and they want a million dollars from every Mormon who violates their copyright by using the name of Christ (c).
I think the Yiddish term for this attitude is Chutzpah. Remember what Jesus said about the ambition of the Pharisees, who were willing to compass the earth to bring a Gentile proselyte to their brand of Judaism, and then made him twice the child of hell that they were.
Like other prejudices, I think what underlies this attitude of superiority is fear, a fear that, in an open exchange, without artificial impediments, the Mormons would make a persuasive case for their viewpoint and lure not only other Evangelicals, but even the ones who are leading the charge. It is the same fear that makes Muslims insist that no Christian meetings be held in any open way in Saudi Arabia, the same fear that makes materialists insist that no questions about the adequacy of Darwinism as a scientific theory be uttered in the public schools, the fear that causes universities to want to bar conservative speakers from campus and military recruiters from law schools. There is a fear that just hearing the detested ideas spoken will drag us down to our respective hells.
But the message of Article VI and the First Amendment is: Snap out of it! We have a marketplace of ideas in this country, and the core part of religious freedom is the freedom to tell other people what you believe, without censorship or threats or slander. Like personal freedom and civil rights, it took over a century for us to realize the promise of those words in our Constitution that we would have “a new birth of freedom”. Being American means you can preach your own beliefs all day and night, but you aren’t entitled to get angry when you disagree with someone else.
That is what Mitt Romney was reminding us of. Being subscribers to the Constitution, being beneficiaries of its guarantees, means we relinquish our right to make other Americans into second class citizens.
In other words, peace on earth to men of good will.
kermit on 18 Dec 2007 at 7:16 pm #
Amen, Coltakashi!!!!! Great job!!