Anatomy of A Political Attack, and more . . .
They Are Bending Ears . . .
Conventional wisdom is Republicans need Evangelicals to win the White House. Now, McCain won the nomination because Evangelicals split between Romney and Huckabee (shudder) and McCain drove through the gap. In others words, he has gotten himself nominated without Evangelicals. That signals a huge shift inside the Republican party. It demands that the question be asked – Does McCain need Evangelicals to win the general?
We saw on Friday that Evangelicals are not nearly as reliably Republican as the press would have us think, but that same post would indicate they are the hinge on which the general election swings. This cycle is marked most notably to date by bringing whole new sets of voters into the mix. Both Huckabee and Obama have brought new voters to the game in a big way. All this calls into the question just how much the conventional wisdom is going to hold this time.
Well, just to be safe, it was obvious that over the weekend there was a full court press on to drive a wedge between Evangelicals and McCain. There is no love lost between McCain and Evangelicals, but it is obvious from reading the press Monday that somebody, probably several somebodies, had been out there reminding pundits and writers of that in a big way. And the press, always willing to have a story handed to them, was more than willing to forward the good news with limited criticality – like asking questions about the things I just noted in the two paragraphs above.
This meme first came to our attention with Robert Novak’s Monday column:
Shortcomings by John McCain’s campaign in the art of politics are alienating two organizations of Christian conservatives. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family is estranged following the failure of Dobson and McCain to talk out their differences. Evangelicals who follow the Rev. John Hagee resent his disavowal by McCain.
The evangelicals are not an isolated problem for the Republican candidate. Enthusiasm for McCain inside the Republican coalition is in short supply. During the four months since McCain clinched the nomination, he has not satisfied conservatives who oppose his positions on global warming, campaign finance reform, immigration, domestic oil drilling and how to ban same-sex marriages.
Not to be scooped, Michael Luo at the NYTimes had a very similar- sounding story:
Ms. Viars’s hesitation illustrates what remains one of Mr. McCain’s biggest challenges as he faces a general election contest with Senator Barack Obama : a continued wariness toward him among evangelicals and other Christian conservatives, a critical voting bloc for Republicans that could stay home in the fall or at least be decidedly unenthusiastic in their efforts to get out the vote.
Come to think about is, the interview with Mark DeMoss that we looked at Friday may have been the warning shot that this press barrage was coming. There was also a story, in several forms, about McCain pretty much guaranteed to put Evangelicals on edge. That story is about his first marriage, more importantly, its pretty ugly ending. Salon picks up where the NYTimes had left off last week:
It seems that McCain, who had once revealed to fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam that he wanted to be president, was restless in 1979. As Navy liaison to the Senate, he didn’t have the career momentum he had counted on to propel him into an admiralty and on to the White House. He was 42, mired in stifling ordinariness. (Civilians call it “midlife crisis.”)
But McCain was making bold career moves on the home front, hotly pursuing a 25-year-old blond from a wealthy Arizona family — while married. Carol, his wife at the time, had once been quite a babe herself apparently, until a near-fatal car accident (while her husband was in Vietnam) left her 4 inches shorter, overweight and on crutches. The couple had three children, whom Carol cared for alone while her husband was in Vietnamese prisons.
London’s Daily Mail carried a similar narrative:
McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.
But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.
Now, this story is not that much of a secret. It was recounted to me by people that served with McCain in his post-Vietnam naval career. There is also no real news that McCain has issues with Evangelicals. The question is “Why now?”
As we have documented on this blog, there has been a clear effort to organize and establish the “religious left.” The Pew Forum looked at that further last week. The effort appear to be “capped” with a piece in the Wall Street Journal (of all places!) just this morning declaring Obama as the best friend religion has seen in the decades.
This level of coverage in this variety of forms and outlets makes clear the level of organization in those efforts. Now that the general election is essentially “on,” the efforts are being redoubled to throw Evangelicals to Obama, or at least keep them at home.
It is astounding to me that the press is this lazy and gullible. It is clear that somebody is handing this stuff around and they are just too willing to pick it up and run without, uncritically. The McCain marriage story was inevitable and it is surprising to me that it did not arise in the primary, but “Evangelical problem” is just too convenient. The election calculus is clearly changing too much to run with that story so uncritically.
Besides, whoever is behind this push of stories has not pushed it through the new media. No story lasts in the MSM without new media backing.
I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, so I have no idea just precisely how this is going to play out in the election, but one thing I know is going to happen: Evangelicals are going to end up looking silly. McCain may or may not be elected, but unless they get smart real quick Evangelicals will lose no matter who gets elected. McCain may not be our friend, but he is not our enemy either. Obama may not be our spiritual enemy, but he is our political one. So with Obama in the White House we achieve none of our political objectives. With McCain, we at least have someone that will listen and perhaps agree. What we are doing now just leaves us out of the game, and makes us look silly.
Lowell adds: Everyone who reads this blog knows I am no McCain fan. Still, it’s hard to deny what is happening here. I just Googled “John McCain’s first wife” and came up with 13 pages of hits. The Huffington Post quotes the UK Times piece extensively just 14 hours ago – complete with photo of the first Mrs. McCain- probably while John was writing this post. Us Magazine picked it up too.
This story is not a pretty one. But it has been known for 28 years, and McCain has been running for president for 10 years. Now, 6 months before the presidential election, we are hearing all about it. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
As someone who supported Mitt Romney, I also see the irony: The MSM ridiculed the Romney’s 38-year marriage and Mitt’s general personal uprightness. They said he was “too perfect.” Now they’re going to savage McCain for being imperfect. Rich.
Speaking Of Obama…
The Jeremiah Wright story is not over.
K-Lo is wondering if a Catholic of good conscience can vote for him.
Elsewhere…
Canada shows how not to do it.
The Ashbrook Center looks at religion, politics, and Huckabee:
James Madison, in The Federalist, assumed that candidates would sometimes make religious appeals, and that these appeals might be aimed at rousing up some majority against some minority or another. Religious passion, in democracies, has sometimes been the basis of some majority faction trampling on individual rights. Persuasive politicians are constantly tempted to gain support by encouraging popular injustice.
Madison’s solution was not to outlaw such appeals. They can’t be eradicated without stamping out freedom itself. His goal, instead, was to defend a Constitution under which they probably won’t work. In the extended and diverse republic created by the Constitution, it’s highly unlikely that any passionate religious opinion will command anywhere near majority support. And so to be effective, politicians will have to temper their passionate appeals with a coalition-based strategy that brings together Americans of a variety of faiths and interests. The result will be a majority that’s not really a “majority faction”—an oppressive force united by some intense passion.
Now that sounds about right to me. So he uses Madison’s idea to analyze Huckabee:
If Chesterton is right about the American dogma, Huckabee’s basic political faith is shared well enough by a majority of Americans. And if Madison is right, only if he can build a coalition of a variety of believers can he achieve success on the national level. Presumably, his sectarian excesses or narrowness would be moderated by what he would have to say and do to convince a majority of Americans that they share his values. My criticism of Huckabee is not that he’s a “Christian leader,” but that he lacks confidence, so far, in the common faith his fellow Americans are quite capable of sharing. Far from fearing him as some kind of dangerous demagogue, I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t have what it takes, at least right now, to come anywhere close to even getting the Republican nomination.
Amen to that conclusion, but this does belie severe political consequences to his attempt. He managed to attract enough of the conservative vote to leave us with John McCain, as opposed to a conservative that would have a chance.
Lowell: Amen!
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CarlH on 10 Jun 2008 at 8:53 am #
Thanks for finding and linking the Peter Augustine Lawler’s editorial, The Candidate’s Religion, from the Ashcroft Center. While the article itself is a bit dated now (January 2008), the discussion certainly is not. A disappointment, however, is that a separate theme hinted at the opening paragraph was never developed, let alone analyzed. Specifically, Lawler asked:
Personally, I think “we” have reason to be concerned on both fronts. While Lawler proceeds to analyze the question raised with respect to Huckabee’s self-description (which is a question that remains relevant–and perhaps is even magnified–because of Obama’s own religious appeals), he says nothing more about the quite different “concern” arising out of the Romney campaign, or rather, as a reaction to the Romney campaign and his response to that reaction. It would be interesting to know how Prof. Lawler would see that within his view of Madison’s view of religious appeals and, particularly, the likely inevitability of such appeals “aimed at rousing up some majority against some minority or other.”