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The Pro Life Movement's Dilemma

Apparently Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry hates Rudy Giuliani too, and thinks he would be more dangerous to the pro-life movement than President Hillary Clinton -- basically because he thinks Clinton would unite the movement and be defeated after four years. The first thing is basically true, but the second assumption should trouble Terry a little more. Actually, I think a more interesting question is what it would do to the motivation of the pro-life movement if Clinton were elected and then re-elected.

Whither the Christian Right?

Matthew Yglesias thinks James Dobson is completely serious about supporting a third party Christian Right candidate:

The best thing is for a pro-life Republican to win the White House. But for a pro-choice Republican to win is worse than for a pro-choice Democrat to win, because it would undermine the narrative that abortion criminalization is a winning electoral issue for conservative politicians. If Rudy gets the nomination as a pro-choicer, I think Dobson et. al. have no choice but to try to throw the race to the Democrats, in order to make the argument that Republicans can only win if they run pro-life campaigns.

"The mere fact of a Democrat in the White House doesn't threaten their power nearly as much as a pro-choice Republican would," he later adds. Scott Lemieux feels otherwise:

I don't mean to discount the possibility entirely, but I do think it takes a pretty cynical view of Dobson's motives ("cynical", of course, doesn't mean "wrong.") If we assume that Dobson wants to maximize his personal power, he's almost obligated to mount a third-party campaign if Giuliani wins. If we assume, however, that he cares most about achieving anti-legal-abortion (for poor women) policy objectives, he's not going to mount a campaign.

Sarah Posner agrees with Lemieux, but for different reasons:

The idea that the Christian right would endorse a third-party candidate is ludicrous, given its pathological need to defeat Hillary Clinton and ultimately maintain sway over the White House. Focus on the Family's James Dobson has a history of threatening defection from the GOP to endorse a third-party candidate. He has never followed through because he's savvy enough to know it would render him irrelevant.

Interestingly, Posner sides with Yglesias on the cynical view of Dobson as power-seeker, but views his options as exactly the opposite of what Yglesias sees: For Yglesias, Dobson cares mostly about power and supporting a third party run against Giuliani is how to maintain that; for Posner, Dobson cares mostly about power and not supporting a third party run against Giuliani is how to maintain that. Here, Lemieux is actually on Yglesias' side, but thinks Dobson is ultimately more motivated by a personal opposition to abortion.

So...who's right? I think it's hard to separate Dobson as power seeker from Dobson as moral opponent of abortion. The two go hand is hand for him. He has a bit of a savior complex and thinks the best way to end abortion is for him to remain powerful indefinitely. I'm inclined to agree with Yglesias that the third party threat is a real and valid one, although it could certainly fall through some time over the next six months, particularly if one of the other GOP candidates comes through: It's commonly cited that Dobson hasn't said anything particularly mean about Mitt Romney, but will socially conservative Christians vote for a Mormon? Will Mike Huckabee surprise in Iowa and finally become a valid first tier candidate? If neither of these happen, just how much of a political risk will Dobson et. al. be willing to take? Not sure, but I can't wait to find out.

How Christian Conservatives Vote

James Dobson took to the Great Satan -- New York Times op-ed page -- today to clarify a few things:

Although I was neither the convener nor the moderator of the meeting, I’d like to offer several brief clarifications about its outcome and implications.

After two hours of deliberation, we voted on a resolution that can be summarized as follows: If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate. Those agreeing with the proposition were invited to stand. The result was almost unanimous.

The other issue discussed at length concerned the advisability of creating a third party if Democrats and Republicans do indeed abandon the sanctity of human life and other traditional family values. Though there was some support for the proposal, no consensus emerged.

"Winning the presidential election is vitally important," he also writes, "but not at the expense of what we hold most dear." A new Rasmussen poll suggests the support for some kind of "Christianist Nader" is out there: "If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination and a third party campaign is backed by Christian conservative leaders, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third party option rather than Giuliani." But before getting too excited, Rasmussen offers a necessary nuance:

The latest poll highlights the potential challenges for Giuliani, but the numbers must be considered in context. A generic third-party candidate may attract 14% of the vote in the abstract at this time. However, if a specific candidate is chosen, that person would likely attract less support due to a variety of factors. Almost all third party candidates poll higher earlier in a campaign and their numbers diminish as election day approaches. Ultimately, of course, some Republicans would have to face the question of whether to vote for Giuliani or help elect a Democrat.

Over to you, Mike Huckabee.

The Christian Right's Third Party Threat

Okay, this is the sort of story someone like me just loves:

A powerful group of conservative Christian leaders decided Saturday at a private meeting in Salt Lake City to consider supporting a third-party candidate for president if a pro-choice nominee like Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.

The meeting of about 50 leaders, including Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, who called in by phone, took place at the Grand America Hotel, during a gathering of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a powerful shadow group of mostly religious conservatives. James Clymer, the chairman of the United States Constitution Party, was also present at the meeting, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.

"The conclusion was that if there is a pro-abortion nominee they will consider working with a third party," said the person, who spoke to Salon on the condition of anonymity.

A "potentially crippling division in the GOP!" A Christian Right third party candidate! Political suicide for the conservative coalition!

Or...maybe not:

Like a cranky older child demanding the attention of his parents doting over their newer infant, the threat of some conservative leaders to seceed from the Republican Party is, at this point, more bombast than susbtance.

Sources close to the evangelical leaders on the call are plain: the talk "was an attempt to signal that Giuliani is unacceptable," one of them says.

The thinking inside social conservative circles this morning is that their leaders' desire to defer to James Dobson -- still the movement's cappo di tutti cappi -- led them to make a tactical blunder. Threatening Giuliani is not the way to preserve influence if he's the nominee.

But it'd just be so fun to watch. It's worth noting that the idea of a Christian Right third party candidate isn't new. In fact, it was floated around in 2004, with Alabama Judge Roy "two-and-a-half ton Ten Commandments monument" Moore as the possible nominee for the Constitution Party. In 2000, Pat Buchanan did run for president, but he only received 0.4% of the popular vote (which included some confused elderly Jews in liberal Palm Beach County).

John McCain's Christian Nation

According to a partial transcript of Dan Gilgoff's Beliefnet interview with John McCain, McCain thinks the most important issue people should consider in selecting the next president is whether "this person [will] carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition." He would also "probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." Not that he doesn't admire the Islam. "I admire the Islam," he said. "There's a lot of good principles in it...But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles...personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith." Sorry John, James Dobson still doesn't like you.

The Christian Right's Fred Thompson Conundrum

Remember how James Dobson declared Fred Thompson was not quite the the Great Hope that burns in his conservative Christian breast (pretty much Dobson's actual wording)? Well, apparently Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy group), told David Brody just how much he disagrees:

I’ve received phone calls and emails from Southern Baptists about Senator Thompson. They are all furious at Doctor Dobson. They just feel that first of all there was a mischaracterizing of his positions...do I wish that he attended church every Sunday? As a Baptist pastor, of course I do. But does that make him a person of unbelief? That’s harsh and unwarranted...I think Southern Baptists have an ethical issue in which they need to deal. They may face a situation where they have a choice of three candidates. One they agree with 95% of the time, one they agree with 80 percent of the time and one they agree with 10% of the time. It may come to pass that they’re faced with a choice.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it shows that Dobson is not a monolithic force in the Christian Right, although he's certainly one of its most powerful players (arguably -- and I tend to agree -- the most powerful player). But, secondly, it's clear that Land matters too, and his quite kind words for Thompson lend him back at least some of the credibility Dobson's harsh email might have destroyed. I'm still not convinced Thompson is going to be the official Christian Right candidate this time, but Land's defense gives him at least a fighting chance if that's something he really wants.

The Lord Hath Spoken!

Or at least sent an e-mail. Apparently James Dobson wrote:

Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail? He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent "want to." And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!

TPM called Focus on the Family and they confirmed the email is Dobson's. Fred Thompson, Saviour of the Christian Right, might be a little weak in that area it turns out. Marc Ambinder thinks it's a good sign for Mike Huckabee: "Consider Dobson's dilemma. He's not going to support who he can't sell as a Christian crusader. But he wants -- he needs a seat at the table of power...So Dobson would be wise to find the best pick of the potential vice presidential lot."

It will be telling to see whether Dobson follows that path. Which is more important to him, influence or ideology? It's easy to say ideology, but for the past few years ideology and power haven't been conflicting ideals in Dobson's world. When it comes down to, say, Rudy Giuliani having the potential to be the most powerful person in the country and Hillary Clinton posing a real threat to that prospect, what does Dobson do with his dilemma? Endorse Huckabee and hope he can at least have an ear in the vice president, or go for goal and do everything in his power to play to Giuliani's power-hungry side to get a golden throne at the table, personal disagreements aside?

Tomorrow's Culture Wars

Ramesh Ponnuru, in a somewhat critical but resigned tone, notes:

The youngest voter group—those 18 to 30—are the least likely to support "the death penalty," "embryonic stem-cell research," "the separation of church and state," "abortion rights," "physician-assisted suicide," or "affirmative action." These voters are, however, the most likely to support "gay rights" and "same-sex marriage."

To which Ross Douthat replies, "This comports with my general impressions of 'the kids' these days, and of the culture-war landscape going forward: Abortion and the 'life issues' in general have staying power; homosexuality, probably not so much."

Which is true, and for obvious reasons: Opposition to gay marriage is based partially on tradition and partially on bigotry (the degree to which each is present varying by person), whereas opposition to abortion rights are based on a variety of factors, sexism certainly being one prospect but another being a sincere belief that life begins at conception and that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder. There's nothing particularly generational about that, whereas the way society views stigmatized social groups changes over time.

This is What a Values Voter Is?

Sometimes I think James Kirchick is two people, one a perfectly reasonable TNR centrist, the other a batshit-crazy Weekly Standard staff writer who keeps walking into the wrong office. Today the former version of Kirchick alerts us to the host of the September 17 GOP "Value Voters Presidential Debate," WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah:

Farah is a logical choice for the moderator position; he's gone after John McCain for succumbing to his North Vietnamese captors, he had a conniption when President Bush appointed an "open homosexual" as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and he's "convinced the purpose of government schooling is to dumb down the populace and turn them into serfs and subjects rather than citizens capable of reason and equipped with a sense of morality." Just last week, he wrote a column entitled, "Arrest Hillary." WND's "White House Correspondent" is Les Kinsolving, who asks questions like, "What does the president think about muskrat love?" and whom even the Bush administration considers to be a joke.

Ironically, the "Values Voter" debate is being held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a major homosexual vacation spot.

Should be pretty awesome.

The Creationist United States of America

Yesterday, Eric Kleefeld wrote:

Think about this.  The combined vote total at Ames for Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo — the three candidates who have professed to not believe in evolution — was 47.1% among these core GOP activists in Iowa.

Sure, there must been some science-based people who voted for these faith-based candidates. But there were probably just as many creationists, if not more, voting for the publicly evolutionist candidates.

Today, Matthew Yglesias writes that he is "consistently taken aback by how unaware people are of the popularity of creationism." Same here. For the uninformed, Wikipedia tells us:

* A decade ago, 44% of the public believed in "young earth creationism" -- i.e., a biblically literally understanding of the planet's development.

* This year, 43% of the public believes "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."

* In 2005, "70 percent of evangelical Christians felt that living organisms have not changed since their creation, but only 31% of Catholics and 32 percent of mainline Protestants had the same opinion."

* And speaking politically, in 2005 "63 percent of liberals and 37 percent of conservatives agreed that humans and other primates have a common ancestry," although that is technically a different question than age of the earth stuff.

Creationism is as American as  baseball and apple pie, especially in the South and Midwest.