What Digby Said

I briefly considered heading to Saddleback Church to take a look at this Rick Warren forum with Sens. Obama and Clinton, but thought better of it. Typically in these things they just stick you in a room to watch TV anyway, so it's not much of a difference. Also I expected that this would be the result, aptly stated by my pal Digby.

The Saddleback congregation applauded Obama very nicely. But as I hear this California evangelical audience cheering McCain far more wildly for everything from offshore drilling to gay marriage to taxes, while applauding every tired old stump line like it's the first time he's said them, I really have to wonder whether this "outreach" is really going to add up to anything.

Absolutely. California fundies are far to the right of your normal fundies. And so when McCain says he has a 25-year pro-life record and he favors a Constitutional amendment for gay marriage, that's the ballgame. In addition, they are with him on taxes and spending and offshore drilling and how "wars of aggression are not acceptable" unless we wage them and all the other gimmicks that conservatives have fallen for since the 1960s. This is tribal and it doesn't matter who has the D next to his name.

What I do think is that the 3-minute segment on those social issues might be pretty good to use to a mainstream audience, as evidence of McCain's very readical conservative vision.

UPDATE: Jesse said everything I wanted to say. However, one addition: I think the "when does a baby get human rights" question will be a new toy for the media to play with. David Gregory already used it twice this morning.