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Ear to the Ground

Slim Pickings for Christian Right

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Posted on Feb 25, 2007

The Rev. Jerry Falwell held a hush-hush summit earlier this month with other conservative Republicans from the Council for National Policy to discuss the 2008 presidential race.  The exclusive group is facing a status downgrade when the Bush years end and can’t find anyone in the lineup of candidates who clearly fits the council’s bill.


New York Times:

A group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn.

The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls, including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign.

But in a stark shift from the group’s influence under President Bush, the group risks relegation to the margins. Many of the conservatives who attended the event, held at the beginning of the month at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., said they were dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election.

Many conservatives have already declared their hostility to Senator John McCain of Arizona, despite his efforts to make amends for having once denounced Christian conservative leaders as “agents of intolerance,” and to former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, because of his liberal views on abortion and gay rights and his three marriages.

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By samuel burke, February 26, 2007 at 3:07 pm Link to this comment
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I am a christian conservative and i have separated myself from the churches i have attended in the past because all they preach is support for israel regardless of what is going on there, they seem more interested in crusading through the middle east than in preaching that jesus christ is Lord and Saviour. I have attended a messianic jewish congregation and they are so zionist that they may make rabbi pastor john haggee blush with envy. Their zeal for israel cannot end well for neither them nor for the united states, they could be a very disruptive force if and when the zionist state of israel begins to get more pressure to settle for peace instead of the perpetual war they use as cover to extend their greater israel dream/nightmare.

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By johnnyfarout, February 26, 2007 at 2:35 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I had a neighbor whose little Daschund, named “Macho”, would bark like a terror when ever he yelled….”Christians, Macho! Christians!” Macho would run around and bark under every piece of furniture and then run down the basement steps into the dark, and bark and bark. If he had caught any he would’ a torn them asunder! These Falwell’s and Robinson’s, now, I figure, they’re the ones Macho was hunting! When we were kids the Sunday school teachers used to freak us out by asking if we’d open the door on a snowy cold day in the dead of winter, and let Joseph and Mary stay at our house, with their ratty donkey and stinking clothes from the nightmare desert of the Roman Empire. We’d all swear that we’d let little unborn Jesus and his family in, and take care of him like he was one of our own. Even if his Dad was an unemployed construction worker, and his Mom was too young to be pregnant like that with this old illegal immigrant on a stinking donkey. What the hell is a donkey anyway!? But we don’t have to worry about any of those old questions these days. The 700 Club, and Falwell’s Legions have fixed the conundrum. None of these characters believes Jesus will come back like that anymore! Nowadays he won’t be a poor unemployed carpenter asking for help! Nowadays he’ll be a big sheetrock contractor, with a dual axle giant diesel fleet of pick ups, with those stainless steel tool boxes and ladder racks, and huge tires from France or Germany, or wherever they make those 17 inch Michelins. He’ll have Blue Cross health care, and Nextel radio phones, and he’ll be beepin’ & chirpin’, and callin’-in fabulous donations to their mega-giga churches with those acres of black top all lined out for maximum parking in that florescent pure white angelic paint that lasts forever and ever. Church will never be the same once Jesus & Co. gets there! Well, maybe Bush#43-44 wasn’t quite right for their heavenly bank accounts, and they might just come up a bit short in the majesty of the lord department right now. But if faith means anything, these guys will figure a way to land on Mt. Ararat and set a goat on fire before we know it. Why it’ll be Sunday every day of the week coming real soon! Oh Happy Day!

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By Levon, February 26, 2007 at 10:26 am Link to this comment
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These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.”

—  Matthew 15:8-9

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By John Lowell, February 26, 2007 at 9:42 am Link to this comment
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Don’t be surprized to watch sell-out after sell-out on cultural questions as the ReichsChurch leadership perceives it might lose its place at the table with the winning Republican candidate. They sold out their “convictions” once in 2001 when it came to Bush’s compromise on embryonic stem-cells and have gone along quite meekly as no noticable progress has been made on life questions by three Republican administrations over three decades. I’ll predict that both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson will find a way to support the Republican nominee regardless of his or her attitude on abortion and civil unions just as long as the nominee offers no opposition to West Bank ethnic cleansing. And Dobson, finding limited access unbearable, can be almost guaranteed to bite the bullet and prioritize ideology over faith. Typical of the ambitious in any age we have in these three birds - and in Evangelicalism in general - a fascination with bigness, big stadiums rallies, big churches, big name conversions. That a given, you can be assured that no meaningful fuss whatsoever will be raised if a Giuliani, a Romney or a Mc Cain are nominated.

John Lowell

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By Jackie T. Gabel, February 25, 2007 at 11:06 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

This is a pathetic lot. They delivered a lot of votes in the last 2 Presidential elections, but not enough to win them, absent massive election fraud. The bigotry at the heart of their agenda would betray them if the US were not itself at its hear a bigoted nation; moreover, one which pays absurd lip-service to ethnic equality via ridiculous feats of political correctitude. Certainly in many other places the US is outstripped in raw discrimination (e.g. India, Japan, China). Nevertheless, the US has really become quite a bizarre society vis-à-vis its marriage of ethnic diversity with racial profiling.

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By bailey, February 25, 2007 at 10:52 pm Link to this comment
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America is tired of hearing religious right bull. pure evil under the disguise of faith.

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By Quy Tran, February 25, 2007 at 9:15 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

A very funny religious clown in the…hell !

Just keep your mouth shut to pick more bucks from your followers. Nobody listen to you !

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By thomsen, February 25, 2007 at 8:52 pm Link to this comment
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Has there been any better news this century?  The christian right is finally fading and after Bush leaves office mainstream America will forget about it.  and our secular society will be alive and well.

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