Article VI Blog

A Voter’s Guide from the Old Testament

As Michigan voters prepare to go to the polls, John Mark Reynolds makes a plea: “Give ‘Em Scorpions” Politics: Avoiding Rehoboam’s Folly:

If the old Reagan coalition is dissolved, then it will not be those who do the deed who suffer first, but millions more unborn children who might have been saved.

As I vote, and I will vote, let me vote for a person who can keep a coalition together and not break it up on its fault lines.

As I vote, pray God, let me be patient and accept slow change that the people can accept and not demand everything that will cost me everything.

Read the whole thing to understand what “Rehoboam’s folly” is in 2008.

John adds: JMR added even more to the discussion with “Coveting is a Sin:…”

All the more reason to avoid putting our faith in cultural change that is fundamentally based in politics

Read the whole thing.

Now, why would “Trust Huckabee” be in Michigan, and zinging Mitt Romney?

Jonathan Martin has the story. The robo-calling organization is working the mitten state:

Trust Huckabee, the third-party group backing the former Arkansas governor, launched a round of automated phone calls into Michigan last night that reached one of Mitt Romney’s most prominent supporters — Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

“It was an attack call masquerading as a poll,” Hoekstra said in a phone interview prompted by Romney’s campaign.

Similar to the calls the group made in Iowa and New Hampshire, voice recognition data is employed as recipients are asked to list to name their preferred candidates.

After saying he backed Romney, Hoekstra was hit with questions beginning with the, “Would you be be less likely to support….” formulation.

You can check out Trust Huckabee here. If you really want to read up on them, here’s a collection of links. This, um, advocacy organization is a 501(c)(4) that’s not supposed to be allied with any campaign. (Wink, wink.) The group’s website is fervently pro-Huck and heavily anti-Romney. I heard Patrick Davis, who runs Trust Huckabee, on the radio recently. He and the organization are based in Colorado Springs, a hotbed of Evangelical organizations of the West. Davis is just as smooth-sounding as Huckabee.

For example, the Washington Post says Davis “resisted the term ‘push polls.’ He described the calls as ‘personalized educational artificial intelligence polls’ and said they were only the start of TrustHuckabee efforts nationwide.”

Personalized educational artificial intelligence polls. You’ve got to love that.

Hey, I wonder if there are any Mormons or even any Catholics on the Trust Huckabee staff, or among the group’s donors?

Thompson Talks Religion

Now here’s something a little different from what we’ve seen from that other Republican Southerner who’s running this year:

Mixing theology and social issues on the campaign trail is rare for Fred Thompson, but he discussed it today answering a question from a member of the audience.

A woman asked him if he would “as a Christian, as a conservative” continue President Bush’s programs to combat global AIDS.

“Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it,” Thompson said.

“The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other.”

Oh, man. Do you find that as refreshing as I do?

John makes some additions:

Identity politics gets ugly.

There is more of the same with Huckabee, and it is starting to tear at the seams of not just Republicans, but Evangelicals. Some very serious Republicans are starting to express a great deal of concern.

Interjection from Lowell: This is an astonishing quote from Huckabee:

“(As governor) there’s not one iota of evidence that I ever ran over people with my faith,” he said. “There’s been an unfair focus on the details of my (religious) doctrine. (Romney) was a (lay) bishop in the Mormon church. He wasn’t one who just showed up. But I’ve never heard anybody bring (doctrine) up with him.”

Governor, regarding Romney being asked about doctrine, I think you need to get out more. Please! And about imposing your faith on public policy: Maybe you’ve forgotten about this incident, in which you help up urgent legislation for three weeks while you tried to get the bill’s language revised because it referred to natural disasters as “acts of God,” and you found that offensive.

Back to John:

But Identity Politics is starting to become large on the other side of th aisle and it is not pretty. David Brooks analyzes the reacent race-based dust-up between Clinton and Obama, and calls it a “trap.”

This is the logical extreme of the identity politics that as been floating around this country for decades. Every revolution devours its offspring, and it seems the multicultural one does, too.

Think about it, all you Evangelical identity voters out there. Yuval Levin adds a bit to Brooks. Of course, if you really want to complicate this whole mess of an identity soup, you can throw in Obama’s church.

The Left Is The Real Enemy…

I found this Atlanta Journal-Constitution amazing.

But Romney has made it abundantly clear that he actually has no interest in welcoming the stranger: just the opposite. Of all the candidates for president, Romney takes the hardest line on immigration. He appeals to the basest elements in our souls instead of the better angels of our nature. His rhetoric has reached the level of the Tancredos and Dobbs of the world: pure demagoguery, hammering away at people’s fears.

Unfortunately, this sort of politics is often effective, and Romney is hoping (dare we say “praying?” To whom?) that it works for him. It’s easy to forget, but it worked for George Wallace in Alabama. “In Birmingham they loved the governor,” sang Lynyrd Skynyrd, and they did, to the tune of four terms in office for the man who vowed to protect segregation forever. [Emphasis added.]

In the course of debating Romney’s position on immigration, this individual has managed to call into question his faith, and the faith of virtually anyone else that thinks like Romney does. That is ugly politics.

Back to Lowell:

Finally . . . .

Our reader Ray e-mails these thoughts:

Marci Hamilton has done another column about religion and the presidential candidates at Findlaw’s Writ.

She starts out by noting the Article VI prohibition on a religious test for Federal office holders. She incorporates by reference her (in my opinion silly) questions for Mitt Romney . . . and then lists questions she thinks the other candidates should answer on church-state relationship issues.

She correctly notes that Mike Huckabee has taken de facto the position that there should be no separation between church and state.

She has a significant question for Hillary Clinton, based on Bill Clinton’s record. However, she softballs questions to John Edwards and Barack Obama.

All in all, the quality of the questions she poses to the candidates varies a great deal. She clearly comes at Article VI not as a protection for religion and religious pluralism but more as a protection of the state from religion.

What? You mean Marci hasn’t been reading this blog? We are shocked – shocked!

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