Article VI Blog

I wonder if some people understand how they play into the political oppositions hands?  Today brought us a story about how Evangelicals and Catholics can work together:

Despite differences over contraception, evangelical leaders have fallen in step with Catholic bishops over what they see as federal compulsion to provide services against their conscience.

[...]

Evangelicals including Chuck Colson, Albert Mohler, and Jim Daly specifically said the issue was not just a Catholic one. While evangelicals do not take the same stance against all contraception, they generally oppose forms of birth control that block uterine implantation.

And yet, one of the biggest names in Evangelical leadership, Ralph Reed, tells us:

But Santorum and his supporters may have the last laugh. From John C. Fremont to William Jennings Bryan in the 19th century to Barry Goldwater, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Ronald Reagan in our time, losing presidential candidates have previewed the ideological trajectory of their parties — and often of the nation.

Romney would be wise to remember this in his general-election campaign. Of course he can’t neglect independents, or women, or Hispanics, or other nontraditional Republican constituencies. But his immediate task is to consolidate conservative support and unify the party. The best way to do that is to appropriate the best parts of Santorum’s message.

So, rather than follow the lead of the party, like Evangelicals are doing on the contraception issue with Catholic leadership, they are telling the WINNER that he has to move towards them.  In other words, they are emphasizing the divide inside the party at the time when the clear message is to come together.  Reed is absolutely right when he says the immediate task is to “unify the party,” but given that Evangelicals, in the form of their designated candidate Rick Santorum, are the LOSERS is not the onus on them to make concessions to party unity?

And so, into this picture steps Team Obama and their more-then-willing allies in the MSM.  First we turn our attention to Marc Thiessen at WaPo:

Mitt Romney handed President Obama a political gift this weekend, when his campaign announced that he would not file his tax return on time. Romney made the announcement at 5 p.m. on Friday — the time politicians usually put out bad news they hope no one will notice. Team Obama noticed all right. The president took a break from the Summit of the Americas in Colombia to criticize Romney’s lack of transparency, while Obama campaign manager Jim Messina declared that it “begs the question — what does he have to hide?”

[...]

The “secrecy” charge is particularly damaging for Romney because it is a clever way for Obama to exploit some Americans’ discomfort with Romney’s Mormon faith without ever raising the issue directly. Recall the outcry last August when a senior Obama adviser declared their intention to highlight the “weirdness factor with Romney.” Team Obama knows many Americans see Mormonism as a “secretive” religion. Calling Romney a “secretive” candidate is a way to tap into those fears without incurring any political blowback.

Now. lay on that Lois Romano’s Politico piece of early this morning:

Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith has hovered over his 20-year political career like a thick layer of incense at Easter Mass. Negative perceptions of the religion so worried his 2008 presidential team that the dilemma had its own acronym in campaign power point presentations: TMT (That Mormon Thing).

Worries persisted this year as skeptical evangelical Christians flocked to other candidates—any other candidate it seemed — causing Romney to avoid all things Mormon in public.

But now that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee, many Republicans think that the standoffish candidate actually needs to embrace his Mormonism publicly to open a window into his life.

So, the left are telling Romney he has to tell everybody about his Mormonism.

On all the issues that matter, Romney is socially conservative.  There is no reason whatsoever to be “suspicious” of whether Romney is a “real conservative” save for suspicions about his faith.   And yet the Evangelical right continues to insist that he prove his sincerity – a fact which can only be seen to mean he has to be somehow “less Mormon” (more like Santorum.)  It’s like the Evangelicals, in their petulance, swung for the fences when a base hit or sacrifice is what is called for .

Social issues are simply not in the issue set for this campaign.  To stand up and argue social issues would be to talk about stuff that just does not matter this cycle.  Time spent talking about stuff that does not matter in an election cycle is time spent losing that election.  Talking social issues, and especially talking religious identity, is giving the left bait with which to set traps.  Therefore it is time to be quiet and step up to the plate and make the sacrifice.  Santorum’s amazing performance makes it a spectacular sacrifice fly, but it is still a sacrifice – an effort to advance the runner if not bring him home.

The alternative is four more years of Obama; therefore, unalterably changing the nature of our nation.  I like our nation just the way it is, as does every conservative regardless of their particular brand of conservatism.

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You are going to read, and if you are reading hard have already read, lots of stuff about religion in the general election now upon us.  Most of it does not matter.

For example, the religious label you choose to apply to each candidate will not matter in the end.  How you report about it will.  For example, the same man, in two separate interviews about faith seems to say Romney has a faith problem and he does not.  Of course, we do not know what questions were asked and what part of the interviews was not discussed in the two pieces.  What we do know if we read carefully is that whatever faith problem exists, it is more about the press than the electorate.  Don’t just read the headlines and the ledes, read what Richard Land is actually saying.

It’s not about those few remaining people that claim they still have a problem with Romney.  Sore losers are sore losers.  It’s not about “Mormon moments” and JFK.  In the end, Catholic life was unchanged after JFK was elected, sure there was a psychological uplift, but what it meant to be a Catholic and Catholic life in general was far more changed by Vatican II at roughly the same time than it was by an election for POTUS.

It may have far more to do with race than anyone in the country is willing to admit, but not is the way most people would have us think.  The problem is not what the LDS church believed or said 30-40 years ago, the problem is race will be used as a club, if not heavy artillery.  Things that happened before a good deal of the electorate was born will be used to raise guilt, if not wielded as direct reverse-racism.  And that brings me to the real issue.

Karl Rove in this mornings WSJ:

Rick Santorum’s decision Tuesday to suspend his campaign effectively ends the GOP nomination fight. But it doesn’t mark the start of the general election between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. That contest has long been under way. Mr. Obama’s speech to the Associated Press last week and two appearances in Florida on Tuesday provide a glimpse of the low road the president and his campaign likely will take.

He will distort beyond recognition his opponent’s arguments. For example, he explained to news executives at the AP that Republicans want to “convert more of our investments in education and research and health care into tax cuts—especially for the wealthy.” Actually, no one has suggested that.

No honest differences are possible with Mr. Obama. He will impugn the motives of any who disagree with him. As he told the AP, his opponents want to “let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity.” His agenda “isn’t a partisan feeling . . . [it]isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea. It’s patriotism.” To disagree with him is unpatriotic. That’s to be expected from Republicans, whom Mr. Obama says stand for “thinly veiled social Darwinism . . . [that is] antithetical to our entire history.”

Mr. Obama will build entire edifices on top of one fake premise, all dressed up in one big phony assumption.

Distortions…falsehoods…outright lies, this is the stuff of the Obama campaign.  Yesterday already saw an attempt not merely to argue, but to impugn the lifestyle of millions of American women.  This stuff will be personal, nasty, ugly, and angering.  It’s all part of “the Chicago way:”

The question facing those of us of faith is how do we respond?  If we take our faith seriously, whatever particularly brand it may be, we simply cannot crawl in the gutter with Obama.  That does not mean we are not strong, we are in fact stronger.   When he pulls a knife, we do pull a gun but we do so not in anger or revenge instead with purpose and intent.

We do not lie, we stick to the facts.  There is no need to engage in personal vindictive nor impugn the character of our opponent.  The facts speak for themselves.  We may have to shout to gain attention, but once we have that attention we return to a reasonable tone of voice.

We occupy the moral high ground and we cannot be driven from it by lies, innuendo and gutter tactics – we can only concede it by resorting to same.  We face a terrible battle, and we will have to fight very, very hard.  In this battle we will wound many of our opposition; such is not a sin.  But if we do so to be vindictive, if we resort to lies, then our opponent, though wounded will have won the exchange.

The campaign ahead will be a test of our faith.  To some extent it will be a test of our faith in the public square.  But more importantly it will be a test of our personal faith.  It will be the kind of test that will build our character to new heights if we submit to it.  It is going to be an interesting seven or eight months.

They can also be a fruitful months on many levels.

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Let’s set the stage a bit here.

1) I checked in recently at our Sitemeter and the reader count was spinning like we’d been “Instalanched.”  (A now old term referring to what happened to a blogger when Glenn Reynolds linked to them.)  Turns out it was not Glenn, it was – get this – Andrew Sullivan who linked and partially quoted this piece that links to us.

2) John Derbyshire was fired by National Review over the weekend.  He wrote a piece for another outlet that is almost universally, here included, believed to be racist.

With those facts in play – let’s get to the meat.  We are linked by Alex Pareene @ Salon who is responding to Kevin Williamson’s cover piece at National Review on Mormons.

Pareene is attempting to make the case that not all references to Mormons are bigotry.  He agrees with us that Lawrence O’Donnell was a bigot last week, but then says, linking to us:

The “MSNBC is bigoted against Mormons” meme is spreading far and wide, though the real, full-throated defense of Mormonism on the right (which I am willing to bet money will frequently involve Evangelicals who have a history of Mormon-bashing) won’t really get going until the general election campaign begins in earnest.

The post of ours that he links to cites O’Donnell and makes reference to some comments by Joe Klein from earlier in the day.  At no point do we make a case that “MSNBC” is bigoted against Mormons, the only time the word “bigot” is used on our piece is a quote of a Kevin Williamson tweet, and that is directed at Lawrence O’Donnell specifically not MSNBC.  So why he links to us as spreading that meme I have no idea.

But here is the real point of our post that he links to:

We cannot take this bait.  These kinds of assaults – the “weirdness” of proxy baptism, polygamy as a justification for illicit sex – may have some appeal if you think Mormonism a “false” religion.  But here is the thing.  In a religiously pluralistic society like ours, if it stands against them, something similar will stand against us.  For example, there is the old canard that has floated in back rooms for years that Jesus wasn’t celibate, he was gay.  Let’s say for a minute that Larry O’Donnell passed that one off – I don’t think we’d sit still for it for very long.  Now, Mormons don’t equate Joseph Smith with Christ, so don’t lay that on me – but they do revere him and O’Donnell has gravely insulted them.

These attacks by Klein and O’Donnell are no different really than Obama’s attempts to force contraceptive insurance coverage down the throats of our Catholic friends.  They are straightforward attempts to stifle, control, and limit the religious voice.  We cannot stand for it – we must in fact unite against it.

On this point, Pareene seems to agree with us:

Williamson’s larger point, when he is not hunting down bigots, is that many religions have founders or transformational figures with sketchy biographies, most religions have doctrines that seem absurd when taken out of context or strictly literally, and not all followers of a religion believe in the same way. Which, duh! I agree: Most religions were founded by lunatics, liars, con men and worse, and many of them preached or still preach racism, homophobia and misogyny, and so none of them should be declared off-limits for mockery and criticism. Michele Bachmann’s Lutheran church believes insane things.

To a secular liberal, it’s funny to watch, say, an Evangelical pastor mock Mormonism, because both churches seem to hold equally silly beliefs. Non-Mormon Christians at least don’t have to suffer the indignity of their odd tenets of faith (Abraham lived to be 175?) having been created very recently, but it is certainly relevant to me if a politician believes we’re living in the End Times or not. And if they do, I shall feel free to mock, because that is stupid and dangerous.

And there you have it – our point reinforced directly.  What is interesting is the use of same to justify mockery.  “It’s OK to make fun of stupid, i.e. religious, people because they are, well, stupid.”  And this is what brings me back to the Derb firing.

As I said, Derb’s piece is universally, including by this blog, considered racist – that does not; however, change the fact that it is based on facts and statistics.  The reason it is racist is because statistical realities notwithstanding, we treat each person as an individual and to define one person by the statistical norms of their group will result in robbing the specific individual of some of their rights and courtesies.  Why cannot the same be said from persons of faith and specifically Mormons?  Says Pareene:

Religion is already a bit of a gray area, because it obviously affects a person’s political choices much more fundamentally than, say, being divorced or a cancer survivor or any number of other biographical details that pundits and journalists instinctively dismiss as irrelevant when it comes to picking a president. Rick Santorum’s conservative Catholicism practically defines him as a candidate, so it is “appropriate” to note and criticize his religious practices.

OK, first of all note that he is arguing with Santorum, not Romney, in this paragraph.  Sanotrum’s religion is indeed more fair game than Romney because Santorum has run on it – Santorum, as an individual, has put it at issue.  Romney has NOT put his religion at issue.   That is precisely the point that Romney made during and in the aftermath of his questioning by a Ron Paul supporter last week.

And now to the broader point – the effect that religion has on a person’s political choices is as diverse as possible.  No single individual can fully be measured or predicted by their faith.  There are people in the church I attend that are the precise political polar opposite of myself.  They attend the same services, listen to the same sermons, pray the same prayers, and ascribe to the same statements of belief that I do, but politically we agree on nothing.

To generalize about a religion, even if the generalization is true as generalizations go, and use that generalization to categorize and describe an individual is to be guilty of PRECISELY the same thing that John Derbyshire was.  Further to use those generalizations not merely as facts about an individual, but as a means for mockery is to heap disrespect and even scorn on the individual in question.   It is no more a joke than the one about the bridge over the Sahara desert.  (If you have not heard it, I’m not telling.)

But then I guess since I am just a “silly,” believing Presbyterian, this can all be discounted.  I would ask Mr. Pareene to note that I did the courtesy of arguing with him and did not merely dismiss nor mock him.

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Rick Santorum is as over as the Monkees.  Covering him is like covering last week’s news.  However, the real beat of this blog is religion and politics and he keeps stepping on that ground.  He is clearly having trouble accepting the fact that it is over, so he keeps swinging.  In his latest effort at campaign CPR, in an apparent attempt to capture the Catholic vote (his native vote that he has continually lost to Romney), he takes to Real Clear Religion with an op-ed entitled:

It Is Hard to Be Catholic in Public Life

What’s wrong with this picture?  For one thing, this is not exactly an outlet that will attract a lot of attention – more indication that Santorum is done.  But let’s focus on substance; its narrow Catholic focus could be one part of the issue.  If you want to be president, you have to president for everybody, that means to some extent you have to do away with labels.  In an identity conscious age, defining too tight an identity will send away more voters than it will capture.  This sort of thing works on a local level, but nationally, not going to happen.

Santorum rightly goes on to decry many of the Obama administration’s assaults on religious liberty.  But in making his case strictly Catholic, in forgetting to be inclusive of all religious expression, he seems to imply that the rest of us do not have problems.  Nonsense.  Indeed the latest Obama raid is against Catholics, but in such Catholics represent all of us of faith – just as Mormons represent all of us of faith as they are particularly under assault from the gay community.

Then Santorum moves into a detailed refutation of JFK’s 1960 Houston speech:

Three pictures hung in the home of my devoutly Catholic immigrant grandparents when I was a boy and I remember them well — Jesus, Pope Paul VI and John F. Kennedy. The president was a source of great pride and a symbol to Catholics that all barriers had finally been broken. What my family and maybe even candidate Kennedy at the time didn’t realize was that in a key moment in that election of 1960 in Houston, Kennedy helped began the construction of another, even more threatening wall for our society — one that sealed off informed moral wisdom into a realm of non rational beliefs that have no legitimate role in political discourse.

JFK delivered a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to dispel suspicions about the role the Catholic church might play in the government of this country under his administration. Let’s make no mistake about it — Kennedy was addressing a real issue and real prejudice at the time. But on that day, Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith. Let me quote from the beginning of Kennedy’s speech:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

The problem here is that Santorum is shooting at the wrong target.  The problem is not, nor has it ever been, Kennedy’s speech.  The problem has been how the left has warped that speech over time.  No church may dictate national policy – that is pretty doggone absolute.  “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”  That is about as definitive and absolute a separation as you can get.

The problem is that people confuse church and religion and morality.  Church is an institution – religion is a belief system – and morality is a code of ethics.  These are different things.  These three things tend to mutually reinforce each other, but they are distinct.  The left has sought to blur the distinction between these things in order to drive simple morality, primarily in the realms of sexual behavior, from the public square.  There is no constitutional requirement for a separation of morality and state, but if one thinks morality and religion and church inseparable, well….

And this is the problem with Santorum’s argument – it plays into the lack of distinction of these three things – and in doing so he buys into the essential argument of the left and ends up weakening the nation as a whole.  A free nation like ours, requires a people of moral character. For many of its citizens that morality is reinforced in religion, and that religion is institutionalized in church – many different churches, and several different religions.  All of us that share that morality should rise together in its defense because without it our nation will descend in the chaos that has plagued many a great nation before us.  If we grant the left their argument that there is no distinction between church, religion, and morality then we grant them the argument that allows our voice to be squelched in the public square.

Now, indeed, Catholic doctrine is that religion and church are inseparable, but morality is not.  That means that within the coalition of those of us that wish to defend this morality publicly, we will have some heated discussion – but we have to keep such internecine debate to ourselves.  I honestly cannot tell if Santorum thinks he is speaking for all of us of faith by speaking of the problems from a uniquely Catholic perspective, which would be an expression of this Catholic doctrine, or if he is just being close minded about the rest of us.  But let’s grant him the nobler motive for the sake of this discussion.

There are two problems with the way he advances his argument.  For one – the rest of us do not necessarily share that Catholic doctrine.  In fact Protestantism, and its child Evangelicalism, are born pretty much out of the realization that church and religion are in fact separable.  So, while Santorum may indeed be arguing inclusively from his own perspective, he is being exclusive from the perspective of the rest of us.  And considering that the only vote he has consistently won is the evangelical vote that sounds like an enormous political mistake to me.

But far worse are those in our nation that hold to our shared morality from an areligious, or only nominally religious, perspective.  His uniquely Catholic argument is on its face exclusive of such people.  When our moral coalition is divided, the left wins.

Thus once again, Santorum fails to advance that which he claims to want to advance.  It is this failure more than any other that makes Santorum unsuitable as a national leader, let alone president, for the social conservative movement.  It is a shame for a good man.  I hope he has a good media career because his political one is over.

Afternoon Update: Catholic blogger Wesley J. Smith picks up on another problem with Santorum’s piece:

I certainly agree that about our founders’ “inspired brilliance and agree that the USA is a nurturing home for faith.  But, faith certainly does not require freedom.

In fact, freedom can lead to a weak faith because it remains untested.  Indeed, the strongest and most enduring faith is often forged in the hottest fires of oppression. Consider, for example, how the Church was persecuted by Rome.  Those martyrs eaten alive in the arena were hardly free.  But they sure had faith!  And because of their sacrifices, the Church grew.

Faith has historically thrived in the face of tyranny and deadly persecution wielded against it.  Look at how the Russian Orthodox Church survived what may have been the worst religious oppression in history during the Soviet era–only to emerge and rebound strongly from its grievous wounds.  Look at the Buddhists in Tibet who today maintain their faith in the face of Chinese occupation and oppression.  Good grief, look at the history of the Jews!

Agreed – that is gross misspeak – Faith DOES NOT require freedom.  However, I think it is fair to say that real freedom requires faith.

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By any reasonable standard we should quit covering Rick Santorum.  He cannot win.

But he is clearly doing whatever he can to attract as much attention as he can.  He is going to use the Supreme Court to make his healthcare point.  This is wrong on so many levels.  To begin with, one of the absolute worst traits of the Obama administration has been its efforts to politicize a court already way too political.  The last thing our side of aisle needs to do is exacerbate the claim.  Secondly, any ruling SCOTUS makes on Obamacare will be based on federal law.  What happened in Massachusetts was based on state law – which lies at the heart of the reason Obamacare can be challenged in the federal courts, and Massachusetts health care cannot.

This is a stunt and nothing more.

But it gets worse.  Video has emerged of Santorum’s less than temperate (vulgar, profane) speech towards a NYTimes reporter.  Not to mention the fact that Santorum is proud of it!  Saying, “If you haven’t cursed out a New York Times reporter during the course of a campaign, you’re not really a real Republican, is the way I look at it,….”  Here is the reporting from The Fix, The Corner and Politico.

Santorum has a point, the left leaning press distorts the truth sometimes beyond recognition.  But presidential candidates do not use language like that in front of the cameras.  The reporter in question thinks Santorum was grandstanding.  From The Fix:

Zeleny himself said Santorum “knew the cameras were rolling” and was using the media as a foil — just as former House speaker Newt Gingrich has successfully at several points in the campaign.

Even Gingrich did it without resorting to words like “bull&^%$.”  Two points of commentary and one of analysis.

The first comment is that this is a trait unbecoming of the presidency.  John Sunnunu, former White House Chief of Staff, this morning:

“Sen. Santorum really has lost his personal discipline and self-control in the process, lashing out at the press, and frankly, lashing out at his opponents,” Sunnu said in a conference call with reporters.

“One of the most important things you need in a president is self-control and discipline,” Sunnunu said, referencing his background as chief of staff to George H.W. Bush. “It is one thing to lose your temper at a New York Times reporter and it’s another to have to deal with the pressures of folks on the international stage and even opposing congressional leaders. And you need discipline. You need self-control. You need to be able to handle your messaging and focus on it.”

“Right now,” Sunnunu continued, “what he is doing with his emotional outbursts, is just giv[ing] President Obama some sound bites, dragging the process out, and frankly, right now, he’s running on ego and emotion.”

My second comment is that Santorum has, to borrow a phrase from him, “uniquely” made his faith an issue in his campaign.  I could spend the rest of the day quoting the Bible and other religious texts as to the necessity and wisdom of temperance, self-control, and controlling the tongue as a part of holiness.  All things I fail at often – but I am not running for president.  How can a man who has claimed God’s imprimatur, via his wife, on his campaign not only engage in such behavior, but insist that it is good?  Was it God’s will that he use the word, “bull$%^#?”

Never before in my life have I been tempted to want to be a fly on the wall in a confessional booth, I try deeply to respect the sacrosanct nature of that Roman Catholic practice.  But I have to think the next time Senator Santorum exercises that sacrament is going to be very interesting.

And now my analysis.  Santorum is no longer running for president.  He is playing the Huckabee/Gingrich game.  He is running to raise his speaking fees.  He is running for a shot at a broadcast media gig.  As Sunnunu points out is behavior is most unbecoming a presidential candidate, but this kind of stuff does play big in some circles of talk radio.  When you combine that with the impression that this act was deliberate, and watching the video I tend to agree, you have a picture of someone using the presidential stage to pursue a different agenda.

He is deliberately sacrificing his ability to genuinely affect the next administration’s agenda, and the future of the Republican party.  If you are supporting him and are serious about your politics, it is time to move on, or you will join him.

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…my brethren, when you encounter various trials. (James 1:2)

I don’t know if quoting scripture is the way to go here, but our friend Nancy French did it at Evangelicals for Mitt, and I found it improved my mood, so I have decided to join.

The Good News…

…is that despite the headlines, the banging of pots and pans, the crowing, and the chest pounding, very little changed yesterday – very little.  Romney won Hawaii and American Somoa is still outstanding – Santorum’s likely gain in delegates is about 3.   Folks that’s a field goal against a 5 touchdown lead.  Keep your eye on the prize.  That counter looks about the same as it did Monday.  Also remember the “epic” Obama/Clinton primary battle.  It was not as epic as the press wanted you to believe. UPDATE: Counts vary but in the light of a new day and with some perspective, it seems Romney actually increased his delegate lead.  Who “won” again?  Back to the original post.

The coverage, of course, would have you think very differently – but remember – the guys in the press box tell you that field goal “may turn the game around” because if they don’t, they know you will tune into a different game.  Michael Medved took a pretty good shot yesterday at explaining why the media hates Romney so.  At least everything but Lowell’s proverbial elephant.

Which brings me to a point the WSJ seems to be making:

In Mississippi, evangelical Christians split their votes three ways, with Mr. Romney and Rick Santorum winning 32% and Newt Gingrich picking up 31% among those voters.

That is what I call progress.  Not a great electoral outcome, but progress in terms of bias against Mormons from Evangelicals.  Alabama’s governor did say that Romney’s faith might be an issue, but that Mitt would likely win the nomination.  (Hey, look at it this way – this Alabama governor is NOT George Wallace.)

But The Elephant Does Seem To Be Standing There…

The National Journal says the issue is not going away.

Katrinia Trinko wrote an interesting piece about the issue at NRO.  If I had to sum up the Evangelical sources she cites (the usual suspects), it’s not about religion, it’s about “trust.”  Uh-Huh, but why don’t they “trust” Romney?  Talk about double-speak.

Chris Cillizza pointed out yesterday:

Romney has yet to win a state where the evangelical portion of the vote has been over 50 percent.

Which brings me to some more double speak.  We have gotten emails and comments and all sorts of communication about Rick Sanotrum’s crack on Hugh Hewitt Monday:

The Mountain West states and Hawaii, which as you know are heavily populated, disproportionately populated with the Mormon population, which is favorable to Governor Romney, those states are now by and large in. And now you’re going to look at the areas of the country where we can do well. [emphasis added]

In other words Santorum, by his own admission, can succeed in states disproportionately populated with Evangelicals – Places like Alabama and Mississippi.  See these wins don’t count for him anymore than Romney’s counted.  Except when it comes to delegates where Romney still has a massive lead.

And given that proportionality is the issue, now what Rick?  Are we to bus people of faith around the nation to make sure that we are religiously balanced?  I mean bussing worked so well for schools.  And even that bit of rye commentary ignores the implication of illegitimacy by the very choice of the word – as if Mormonism does not have a right to compete in the religious marketplace, let alone succeed.

But I want to close as I started, with hope and joy.  A friend shared a link to this post by a Catholic and I think it is worth sharing:

To fight for hope, to save human dignity from the hostility that would destroy it, we must care for the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, defend the oppressed, comfort the lonely, and bring relief to the poor.   Against an entertainment industrial complex which mocks everything that is wholesome, we must promote healthy marriages, vibrant family life, the dignity of work and the rights of those who labor.   Any affront to human dignity and freedom is another front in our fight for the truth. Yet this battle is not limited merely to the public square and the marketplace of public opinion, we must also take the fight to those places in our own hearts in which vestiges of this hostility still linger.

Lowell adds . . .

Just one post-script from James:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath….

Always good advice when discussing politics!

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