It was Iowa — better said, a lot of Iowa Republican primary voters — who propelled Mike Huckabee into prominence and punctured the tire on Mitt Romney’s campaign bus.  The latest news about the Iowa GOP is that they’ve denied their senior senator, Charles Grassley, a voting seat among its delegation the to the Republican National Convention.

Is there any earthly reason to allow such a demographic to have such tremendous influence over who the Republican presidential nominee is?

In the encouraging news department, a Google News search for “Mitt Romney” with the words “vice president” and “Mormon” produced nothing notable. That’s good, even if it leaves us with little to write about. Believe me, John and I would be happy if this blog became unnecessary.

Meanwhile, veep speculation runs rampant. We’re biased, of course, but it sure does seem to be trending Romney’s way. That’s what the L.A. Times Opinion LA blog thinks, as well as NPR’s Ron Elving:

[R]ight now pressure is building again for McCain to set aside his personal distaste for Romney and put him on the ticket. The campaign has put out the story that the obvious animosity between the two men in the primaries has been set aside. No one will ever sense true chemistry in this relationship, but it’s possible McCain could make the same judgement call that Sen. Bob Dole made in 1996.

Dole had endured considerable abuse from former Rep. Jack Kemp of New York when they both served in Congress, and it was clear that the Kansan had little use for the former pro quarterback. But if Kemp could help win the White House, Dole was willing to make the personal sacrifice and put him on the ticket.

It was a sign of some desperation on Dole’s part, and in the end it did not get him elected. But Romney is a more mature and serious politician than Kemp ever was, and he may be a better antidote to McCain’s specific problems than Kemp was for Dole’s.

With his most recent moves, Romney has shown he is willing to forget past wounds and make sacrifices of a material kind that few can dream of making. He has done what he can do.

Will McCain feel the need to do as much?

We’ll see. And the gang at MSNBC says McCain might announce his VP pick while Obama’s overseas. That would be interesting.

And on that note, we wish you a fine day!
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First, watch this JibJab cartoon, if you haven’t already. If you’re like me, you’ll laugh out loud and find your mood unexpectedly improved.

Now: Pickings are a little slim these days, it being the dog days of summer and all. (I’m in Washington today, and “dog days” certainly describes the weather.) But there is still a little going on:

Jonathan Martin reports, in one of those anecdotal pieces we dislike so much, that “the reason McCain is garnering less enthusiasm than President Bush [is that] talking about his personal faith is not something he’s comfortable with.”

(Emphasis added.) A plague on all their houses. First, on Martin’s house: His story is based on another story, which is in turn based on yet another set of “person in the street” interviews. Note to journalists: Those anecdotal interviews tell us nothing. Nada. Zilch. They reflect your laziness. They do make good reads, however.

Second, consider this “person in the street” view, as reported by Martin:

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa (AP) — Stirring her morning coffee, lifelong Republican Grace Droog voiced her doubts — and those of many evangelical voters — about what she isn’t hearing from John McCain in this year’s presidential election.

“I look for something about his faith,” she said. “It’s very important, it’s what our nation was founded on.”

Her pal Joan Rens nodded; she, too, wants McCain to talk about his religious beliefs. “I wish he would so we would know how he stands on his religious views and where his faith lies,” she said.

This makes me want to scream. Are you as tired of this approach to voting as I am? Is that all it takes — a candidate must talk about his religious beliefs a lot, even if it’s the social justice religio-babble of an Obama? Please.

(I was just kidding about the plague, by the way.)

And . . . why, pray tell, is Iowa supposed to be such a bellweather for voter sentiment?

For a more forward-looking approach, here’s an interesting e-mailer to K-Lo at NRO:

Evangelicals are going through a massive political identity crisis right now and should not, absolutely should not, be courted according to some outdated pre-2004 model. We are too disjointed right now for our collective views to be a determining factor, especially as doing so would alienate other voting groups.

Read the whole thing, and enjoy your weekend!
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William McKenzie of the Dallas Morning News suggests Pentecostals might be an important demographic group this fall — particularly Hispanic Evangelicals, a very interesting conservative-religious segment:

What does all this mean for the fall election?

John McCain has the edge among Pentecostals, but this is not a done deal.

Mr. McCain’s strategists would be smart to emphasize to Pentecostals his belief in conservative social values and his dedication to finding a better set of immigration laws. The values part would reassure Pentecostals that he won’t unravel the social order. And his devotion to fairer immigration laws will show he’s not one of those Republicans who is out to demonize immigrants, some of whom worship in Pentecostal iglesias in cities like Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago.

As far as Barack Obama goes, he could play to the younger Pentecostals who have an interest in a fairer economy. And there are black Pentecostals he could win over in large cities.

Read the whole thing.

Elsewhere, this Religion News Service writer wonders if Evangelicals will turn to Barack Obama, who’d love to see them do that.  The article is not persuasive or even informative, because it’s simply a collection of “man/woman in the street” interviews.  Besides, I see no reason why Evangelicals won’t vote their political beliefs first.  Those who tend to have conservative political views will overwhelmingly vote for McCain; those who are more liberal (a minority within Evangelicalism, I believe) will vote for Obama.

Sigh. Simplistic stories about religious voters seem to be favorites f0r lazy reporters.

Finally,  on the political side of the fence, John, e-mailing from Rome, notes this story about a Romney becoming McCain’s Michigan campaign chair.  It’s Scott, Mitt’s brother.  Hmmm . . . .
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McCain appears to be getting serious about Veep selection and Romney is high atop the list. (What?  No Huckabee? NO SURPRISE.)  So the punditry is full of evaluations.  Here is Jonathan Martin’s and here’s a bit of a WSJ survey of commentary.  The words “religion” and “Mormon” appear nowhere in any of this?  I don’t think there was a single evaluation of Romney’s chances for the #1 slot that did not mention it.

(Lowell interjects:  Well, Jonathan Martin does mention it in passing among the “cons” of selecting Romney:

Yet for all his energy, Romney demonstrated trouble connecting with voters during the primary. His Mormonism was plainly a problem among some religious conservatives.

So the punditry is not ignoring The Question just yet.)

Questions:  Is this because the Veep slot just is not that serious? Did the primary campaign create an inoculation effect?  Would it not have been a serious issue in the primary absent Huckabee?  Will we hear from Evangelical leaders over the weekend?  Will anyone make something out of the proximate location of McCain’s weekend place to the Jello Belt?

If Romney is selected, more questions: Will The Question arise at a serious level?  Who will raise it?  There is little love between McCain and Evangelicals, though there appears to be resigned toleration at this point.  Would this cause Evangelicals to sit this one out?  How could Romney best be deployed in the campaign?  What will we hear first “Mormon” or “black liberation theology”?  Who will be the first to charge a potential Mormon assassination plot to gain the presidency? (Oh, it will happen somewhere in the deep ugly bowels of the Internet . . . .)

It could be an interesting long weekend.  We’ll post if something breaks, otherwise, enjoy the weekend.  We have turned off comment screening so our faithful readers can contemplate these questions and many more.

Oh Yeah…

There were a couple of interesting religion and politics articles yesterday.  This one on the California Supreme Court gay marriage decision and this one on an IRS ruling.
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To say that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s National Press Club speech dominates Monday’s political news would be more than a gross understatement. It is hard to know what to add to roundups like this one. I’ll just offer a few observations:

1. The Wright controversy is not about religion and politics. It’s mostly about a pastor who rants the extreme, borderline crackpot views of MoveOn.org over his pulpit.

2. Adding to no. 1, the controversy over Wright is not about his theology, it’s about his political statements. The former is almost immune from political attack; the latter are 100% fair game.

3. Wright has established himself as a kook. I almost wonder if he has done so in order to allow Barack Obama to distance himself from Wright once and for all. Obama can now say, “Look, the guy was my pastor and I looked to him for spiritual leadership, but this stuff is beyond the pale and I reject it completely.” I wonder if he will, however.

4. Wright himself seems to be able to articulate the difference between being someone’s pastor and being a political adviser, as Power Line notes. And yet the Rev. Wright seems to have a hard time seeing the difference between preaching the Gospel and simply ranting about the same things one might expect to read on the Daily Kos, or hear on Keith Olbermann’s show (although Wright makes the moronic Olbermann seem almost thoughtful by comparison).

5. Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from Wright’s pratfalls is that he represents everything wrong about mixing politics and religion - and then some. As a conservative Republican, I’m just relieved that this episode was inflicted on a Democrat, and not on a GOP politician who got too cozy with a religious whacko who happens to be on our side of the aisle.

I just think Wright cannot be taken seriously and does not deserve all the attention he is getting.

John’s comments: I have to disagree with my friend Lowell. Jeremiah Wright certainly wants this to be about politics and religion. Says Eugene Robinson:

But his basic point — that any attack on him is an attack on the African-American church and its traditions…

Indeed, Wright seeks religious cover for political speech. Consider this from the transcript of the speech itself:

To say, I am a Christian, is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray, as they ride on the decks of the slave ship, is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying, as they ride beneath the decks on that same slave ship.

How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same. And what we both mean when we say, I am a Christian, is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God ’s children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals, in order for us to walk together into the future whichGod has prepared for us.

First, it is amazing to note that here Wright is making exactly the same argument, the “different god” argument, that was made to EXCLUDE Mitt Romney from consideration, for the INCLUSION of his views, which he does in the name of diversity. Now that is an argument we have advanced on this blog time and time again. The problem is, he is using it to place his essentially political statements above the fray and outside the realm of political criticism.

Yet, during the Q&A Wright seeks to draw a definitive line between religion and politics:

So I started it off in prayer. When he went out into the public, that wasn’t about prayer; that wasn’t about pastor-member. Pastor- member took place downstairs. What took place upstairs was political.

But it seems a mighty convenient division., a division based only in action, but not in thought speech, or idea.

This, frankly, is a nightmare for our nation. By seeking religious cover, Wright has essentially invited in depth scrutiny by press and our government into what goes on in our churches. Wright’s formulation would here, for example, prevent government observation of what goes on in any mosque in this country, up until the point that someone is actually hurt. Terrorists could feel free to use mosques for planning and logistics because it is not political until it is action.

But worse, imagine court cases where churches are invaded and efforts are made to sort religious and political speech. Where churches are invaded by press and pundit seeking political ammunition when they should be worshiping. Yes, I know it happens now, but imagine it cut loose in the fashion that Wright here proscribes. Consider our interview with Hugh Hewitt when his book, “A Mormon in the White House?” came out:

JS: The next place I think we’ll go — you mention this in the book, Hugh, and it was something Lowell and I found out very, very early on when we started the blog, somewhat disappointingly. There appears to be a great dearth of case law related to Article 6, and I’m just wondering why, and what does that mean?

HH: It’s self-executing . That’s why. For the longest time everyone understood what it meant, that one did not ever suffer penalty for their religious faith in the public life of the United States. Much like the 14th Amendment removed disabilities to African Americans serving in the public life of the United States. However, the internalization of that ethic seems to have frayed, even after the 1960 campaign. And I was talking with Bill Bennett about this this morning. The bar is so low when it comes to attacks on Mormons vis a vis any other minority, that it is shocking. And I think that is because simply opinion leaders have not educated those who take their cues from them about what is and what is not acceptable concerning Mormon bashing. And unless and until they do, it is going to continue, until it becomes unacceptable, or — we internalize from public figures, how to act. And thus, many of us have watched the decline of Catholic bigotry. We have watched the decline of attacks on gays and lesbians. We have watched the decline of attacks on African Americans, on Muslims because of the public debate about those. That has not yet happened about Mormons. It has got to.

Wright here, by seeking to blur the line between religious speech and political speech, challenges the “self-executing” nature of Article VI. Were he successful, our nation would be a much worse place.

Now, having said all that, I do not, thankfully, think the good Reverend was successful in his arguments. But they are dangerous arguments nonetheless. as I pointed out, they are arguments that were used to exclude in the Republican primary, and frankly that is the effect I think they will have on the Democrat side as well, despite Wright’s intentions.

OH and by the way, having been to a few black churches in my life - I am pretty sure it is the same God.
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That’s what Matt Lewis calls them, and I think he’s right. It’s not too early to start thinking about what that scenario might mean. My battle-weary, less optimistic side does not think it will be pretty. My deeply-scarred optimistic side dares to believe the nation might actually learn some important things from such a campaign.

Consider:

• Huckabee has formed HuckPac, clearly a presidential candidate-style operation.
• Romney has made no secret of his willingness to accept the vice presidential nomination, and is actively campaigning for McCain. (Just yesterday I received a request from Romney’s operation that I raise $10,000 for McCain.)
• Huck supporters, seeing what a setback it would be for their guy’s 2012 chances for Romney to be the veep nominee this year, have mounted a “no to Romney” campaign.

What a fascinating set of events. Assuming that the presidency is in Democrat hands in 2012, these questions are only the first that come to mind:

1. Will Mike Huckabee continue to run as “the Christian candidate?”
2. Regardless of whether Huck does so, will rank and file voters divide up by religion anyway, with Evangelicals falling in behind him? (I am doubtful about that.)
3. Will Evangelical political leaders simply pick and back a candidate, or simply hold back until it is too late, like they did this year?
4. Will “flip flopper” still be code for “Mormon,” or will four years of Romney speechifying and writing cause that issue to fade?
5. Will Huckabee still be angry about Romney’s comparison ads in Iowa?

Of course, the answers all depend on a number of variables that won’t be known for some time — and many that will remain unknown until 2012. No one saw Huckabee coming, for example, and Hillary Clinton certainly didn’t see Barack Obama in her rear view mirror.

But the idea of Romney v. Huckabee does provoke a lot of thinking.

John Speculates: Four years is a life time in politics, almost none of the “predictive factors” we look at today will be in play when decision time actually comes. That said, here are some of the things I am going to be watching.

• Huck’s campaign could not raise money, how does he expect his PAC to? Evangelicals have a lot of energy for campaigns, but not a lot of money for anything but the plate in church, or energy for the hard work of politics.
• Huck always struck me as liking the limelight more than job, and he has signed with a Hollywood talent agent. The PAC could be all about “keeping his cred” while he is shopped for a Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, or Pat Robertson type job.
• If Evangelicals don’t wise up a bit, they are liable to find themselves on the sidelines in the next election cycle. Where would Huckabee be without his base? He barely scratched votes outside of Evangelicals.
• Now that Romney has national name recognition he has the next four years to capitalize. If it is about the two of them next time, it will not be about first impressions. Religious labels matter in first impressions, but not so much when the candidates are known.
• Politics is often about mistakes. We are currently watching Obama blow up. In all seriousness who do you think is more mistake prone, Romney or Huckabee? If you really think Romney, I suggest you research again.

Bottom line is this, running for president is a very serious undertaking. Huckabee played at it - he enjoyed far more success than the average person that just plays at it, but such does not lay a base for strong future efforts.

Oh by the way - with Obama imploding and Hillary working as hard as she is to help, I am not particularly looking at any Republican in 2012 other than an incumbent.

Thursday Humor…

The Boston Globe recounts a “Top Ten” list that Romney gave to a correspondents dinner on why he dropped out:

No. 10: There weren’t as many Osmonds as he thought.
No. 9: Got tired of the corkscrew landings of his campaign plane while under fire
No. 8: As a lifelong hunter, I didn’t want to miss the start of varmint season.
No. 7: There wasn’t room for two Christian leaders in the presidential race
No. 6: I’d rather get fat, grow a beard and try for the Nobel prize.
No. 5: Got tired of wearing a dark suit and tie, and I wanted to kick back in a light colored suit and tie.
No. 4: When his wife realized he couldn’t win the GOP nomination, my fundraising dried up.
No. 2: I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.
And the No. 1 reason Romney dropped out: His campaign relied on a flawed campaign strategy that as Utah goes, so goes the nation.

Self-deprecating humor as weapon - I like it. (I can hear a bunch of people howling over no. 7 right now.)

Lowell:  Those who are upset about no. 7 have no sense of irony or humor.  But what else is new?
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