Conventional political wisdom dictates that you generally to want to alienate anyone supporting you, but I wonder if Republicans will ever distance themselves from the nutcases that support them. I’m not talking about the David Dukes that come out of the woodwork to run for office, I mean the loons who are actually accepted by the party and the candidates.
A great example is McCain. He recently accepted an endorsement from Rev. John Hagee. Mc Cain said he was “very honored” to receive the endorsement of the reverend, who has said/done some of the following things:
**- “All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them”
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“Well Islam in general – those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”
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"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.
The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.
So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."
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Called Catholicism, “the great whore”
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He held a slave auction as a school fund raiser. **
Obviously, he is a complete asshole. Yet, McCain has not repudiated him or anything he has said. In fact, he has done the opposite. McCain held a public appearance with him. He said Hagee “supports what I stand for and believe in” (he has since backtracked a little). It seems to me that the current political calculus is that the GOP can’t win without appealing to these people and their supporters. Seeing as it is unlikely that the world will be free of these religious nuts, when will the GOP cease to actively court these people.
Now before we start, I want to make it clear that I am aware of the Dems do this too, to some extent. You will often see people appeal to questionable characters like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. However, those two (and others like them) have been marginalized and demonized to an extent that their GOP dopplegangers have not. For example, contrast the treatment of Farrakahn’s unsolicited endorsement for Obama, and McCain courtship of Hagee. To quote this Salon article:
[QUOTE=Salon]
One of this week’s hysterical press scandals was that Minister Louis Farrakhan praised Barack Obama’s candidacy even though Obama had previously denounced numerous Farrakhan remarks and the Obama campaign did nothing to seek out the Farrakhan praise. Nonetheless, Tim Russert demanded that Obama jump through multiple hoops to prove that he has no connection to – and, in fact, “rejects” – the ideas espoused by Farrakhan deemed to be radical and hateful.
Yesterday, though, the equally fringe, radical and hateful (at least) Rev. John Hagee – a white evangelical who is the pastor of a sprawling “mega-church” in Texas – enthusiastically endorsed John McCain. Did McCain have to jump through the same hoops which Russert and others set up for Obama and “denounce” Hagee’s extremism and “reject” his support? No; quite the opposite. McCain said he was “very honored” to receive this endorsement and, when asked about some of Hagee’s more twisted views, responded: “all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.”
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as far as the differences between the Dems and the GOP:
[QUOTE=Salon]
…The GOP has long been given a pass on courting the most warped and twisted religious figures around. George Bush spoke regularly with Pat Robertson – never once forced to “denounce” or “reject” him. In 2006, Rev. Hagee had a private meeting with uber-White House neocon (and convicted criminal) Elliot Abrams, who just happens to run Middle East policy in the Bush administration, and afterwards, Hagee gushed that he and Abrams (like he and Lieberman) shared similar views towards the Middle East: “we felt we were on the right track.”
Watching the media’s treatment of Farrakhan and Hagee, is it possible to imagine a more transparent, and grotesque, double standard? In the framework of the Russert-led establishment press, white evangelical Christians are, by definition, entitled to great respect no matter how radical, extreme and hateful their professed views are. These are, after all, religious Christians – People of Faith – and, as such, it is wrong, even bigoted, to suggest that they should be repudiated. There is nothing ever radical, hateful or dangerous about the views of white evangelical Christians like Hagee.
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Things like this go beyond philosophical differences. I think most of us on the left can disagree with conservative positions while still appreciating where they are coming from. But many of the guys the Republicans reach out to are pretty despicable by any measure. When will the GOP take a stand against people like Pat Robertson, Karl Rove, et al.? Will this always be justified as a means to an end without consideration for the underlying principles, integrity, or the people who are hurt by these actions?