2008: The Year of the “Biographical Candidate” and Religious Attacks
Issues? Nah, just tell me your story . . .
John noticed two stories that I cannot resist mentioning. In “It’s Not Going to Be About the Issues,” RealClearPolitics’ Tom Bevan observes — accurately, I think — that “[t]his year’s [presidential] contest features two insurgent candidates whose campaigns are built around themes anchored largely in their biographies.”
That only describes the culmination of a campaign in which Mitt Romney was never allowed to escape his biography, particularly his religious biography; Mike Huckabee ran on his denominational biography for awhile, then complained when it was hung around his neck; Rudy Giuliani ran as the hero of 9-11 and not much more; and even Hillary Clinton ran as a Clinton and as a candidate who would take us back to those halcyon times of the 90′s. Bevan:
Every four years the political intelligentsia laments the fact that the presidential race inevitably boils down to “who you’d rather have a beer with.” Guess what? The public is bellying up to the bar to take the measure of these two candidates over the next eight weeks.
Maybe part of Mitt’s problem was that too many people (rightly) couldn’t imagine having a beer with him. Read the whole thing.
Oh-oh, now it’s Sarah Palin who has weird religious beliefs . . .
Michael Medved comments on left-wing alarm over Sarah Palin having grown up in the Assembly of God Church and then, six years ago, joining the Wasilla Bible Church. Supposedly her “‘church speaks in tongues and believes in “rapture” and believes God tells us to build a pipeline . . . . And . . . tries to “cure” gay people.’”
Without getting into whether or not Palin actually believes those things, Medved says it all here:
Of course, a careful examination of any church or any denomination would find plenty of potentially embarrassing or offensive details. Assaults on Mitt Romney’s Mormonism followed the same game plan as the nasty cracks about Palin: take a religion that enriches the lives of millions of good and decent people and focus on its distinctive or unusual aspects to try to discredit the candidate (and, incidentally, the entire faith community).
Every religion looks odd from the outside – very much including my own. I know that it seems weird to non-Jews (and to non-observant Jews) that my observance involves shunning some delicious foods, praying with a contraption of leather straps and wooden boxes every morning, and not riding in a car on Friday night or Saturday. Those unfamiliar with Catholicism might find themselves perplexed by doctrines ranging from transubstantiation, to the virgin birth, to papal infallibility.
All points we’ve made many times here. Again, the whole thing is an excellent read and reminder of where we’ve been during this campaign. I hope we’ve learned something from all that, but I do wonder.
Posted in Electability, Religious Bigotry, Understanding Religion | 4 Comments » | 
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fitzwdarcey on 10 Sep 2008 at 12:05 pm #
I am afraid what some may have learned from this election is that attacking the religious beliefs of a candidate, while risky, also pays off. I think if these attacks persist, however, there will be more general outcry in defense of Governor Palin than there was during the primary campaign.
coltakashi on 11 Sep 2008 at 9:02 am #
Apparently Congressman Cohen who represents the Memphis, Tennessee, area, said on the floor of the House that Barack Obama was “a community organizer like Jesus” and that he was being persecuted by “a governor, Pontius Pilate.” What makes such a pronouncement even more insane than it is on its face is the fact that Cohen touts himself as “the first Jewish person elected to Congress from Tennessee.”
(The Cohen name is derived from a name for “priest” in Hebrew, and many persons of that name claim to be descendants of priestly families that officiated in the temple in Jerusalem. Indeed, a particular Y-chromosome identified with many Cohen descendants was also found recently in an East African tribe that claimed descent from priests who had fled Jerusalem around the time of the Babylonian Conquest in 586 BC. )
Cohen early on endorsed Barack Obama, but he is still a Jew, so apparently he has more devotion to Obama than he does to Jesus.
The other element in Cohen’s statement that was supremely irrational was his attempt to smear anyone who is “a governor” with the guilt of Pontius Pilate. It’s not like those who are elected governors in the United States have any kind of ideological or moral connection to a Roman procurator who was appointed by an emperor and the Senate of Rome to rule over a conquered population, or that modern governors hold up Pilate as some kind of admired figure.
Besides, what does Cohen’s statement say about former governors Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, let alone current Democratic governors Bill Richardson and Janet Napolitano and Ed Rendell? Does he think Democrats should eschew running for the office of governor, because it is inherently tinged by Pilate’s legacy, while it is OK to be a senator, among the body that is the historical heir of the body that appointed many procurators like Pilate? Indeed, a similar comparison might be made between the Sanhedrin, which tried and condemned Jesus as being worthy of death, and the modern Senate.
Basically, the entire Democratic political and news media establishment has come unhinged and lost their ability for rational discourse as far as Palin goes. I can only guess that they are so afraid of her appeal to women voters that they feel they have to crush her unequivocally. They have seen the polls, and it is clear that the Republican lead among male voters is also becoming a balance or maybe even a lead among female voters.
So the Democrats resort to attacks based on her religion, only demonstrating that they don’t know the language of religious faith, and are foreigners and outsiders trying to convince those on the inside that Palin is somehow apostate. All they are accomplishing is to strengthen the understanding that the Democratic Party is alien to the religious worldview of most Americans. Having Jews tell Christians what to think about other Christians based on the New Testament is just one example of the Democrats’ cluelessness about religion.
TVHall on 11 Sep 2008 at 9:08 pm #
The best retort to Rep. Cohen’s inane comment that I have come across is one which points out that when the life of said “community organizer” was in the balance, Pontius Pilate voted “present,” just like the currently well-known community organizer.
anna on 15 Oct 2009 at 10:47 pm #
Cohen early on endorsed Barack Obama, but he is still a Jew, so apparently he has more devotion to Obama than he does to Jesus.