Hoping For A Bank Shot

We're at the part in the Rick Warren controversy where some "good liberals" like E.J. Dionne come out of the woodwork to defend the mistaken decision because, I guess, Warren and his cadres might spontaneously alter their own deeply held beliefs, and then how awesome will everything be?

Liberals who see Warren as a garden-variety conservative evangelical defined primarily by his opposition to gay marriage accuse Obama of selling them out. Gays and lesbians enraged by Warren's strong opposition to gay marriage in last month's California referendum charge Obama with pandering to white evangelicals and fear the president-elect has gone out of his way to offend them in order to curry favor with straight conservatives.

But a more benign view on parts of the religious left casts Warren as the evangelical best positioned to lead moderately conservative white Protestants toward a greater engagement with the issues of poverty and social justice, and away from a relentless focus on abortion and gay marriage.

I mean, this is just a fantasy. I know that Dionne thinks Democrats can crack this Da Vinci Code and get evangelicals to focus on different issues than they historically have, and that may be true at the margins, but for the most part, religious white Protestants care about gay marriage and abortion because that's been the sum total of their political engagement for decades. To ask them to subsume that is to ask them to subsume their personal ideology, and in some respects their morality. I just think it's very naive to believe that will change. Yesterday the Pope called fighting homosexuality as consequential as protecting the rainforest. The E.J. Dionnes of the world would say that I should be thrilled that the Pope cares about the rainforest.

The major political issue that Warren has involved himself over the past half-decade is Prop. 8. That's just a fact. He spent no political capital on extending unemployment benefits or increasing the minimum wage. I appreciate the thought, expressed by Melissa Etheridge, that if gay people just talk to someone like Warren, they can open his eyes, but while I think that is true with the vast apolitical or low-information sections of the country, it's not likely to work with an evangelical leader or his flock.

I fall more along the lines of Katha Pollitt:

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead [...]

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.

Hear hear.

Neither Kinder Nor Gentler

The news that anti-gay bigot Rick Warren will be delivering the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama really sucks. Not necessarily because I think the invocation is such a great platform - quick, name the last ten people to do it! - but because of the likelihood that Warren will be tapped for other responsibilities when Obama becomes President, and will subsequently become the face of religion in America. And while I don't have a problem working with pastors, even those in the evangelical movement, on the common ground issues like AIDS prevention and poverty, Warren is not the one that Democrats should be elevating. He's a snake charmer who is just as extreme as a Falwell or a Robertson. Here's PFAW's release:

Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.

I'm sure that Warren's supporters will portray his selection as an appeal to unity by a president who is committed to reaching across traditional divides. Others may explain it as a response to Warren inviting then-Senator Obama to speak on AIDS and candidate Obama to appear at a forum, both at his church. But the sad truth is that this decision further elevates someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of Americans.

Liberals just aren't going to see eye to eye with Rick Warren. There's no compromise to be made. This is a guy who recently agreed that Iran needs to be "taken out" in language that is not discernible from a mullah. This guy does not need to be made the kinder, gentler face of the evangelical movement, in a cynical play for support that will not be forthcoming. It's a big mistake.

Tomorrow In the OC: Obama, McCain, Rick Warren

Southern California actually becomes the center of the Presidential universe tomorrow afternoon, as Rick Warren's Saddleback Church hosts John McCain and Barack Obama at a forum. The candidates will not answer questions at the same time (though both will briefly appear on stage together), but they will have an hour a piece to share their views.

It's likely that both fans and critics will be watching closely when Warren plays host to the two presidential contenders at his church complex in Lake Forest, home to 22,000 weekend worshipers.

The presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees won't debate during the Civil Forum on the Presidency. But they will make a brief joint appearance, their first of the campaign, and Warren will interview each separately about the Constitution, poverty, AIDS, human rights and other subjects.

"America has a choice. It's not between a stud and a dud this year," Warren said. "Both of these men care about America. My job is to let them share their views."

Warren may represent the softer face of evangelicals, but he still holds beliefs that hew strongly to the family values conservatism you would expect. In fact, he says that he would have trouble voting for an adulterer. I wonder which of the two Presidential candidates he's obliquely referring to?

WARREN: John Edwards and others like him (emphasis added) have lost the trust of America because they lied, and fundamentally beneath every affair it’s dishonesty, its deceit, its deception. They’re lying to God. They’re lying to themselves. They’re lying to their wives and they’re lying to the public. How do you trust someone who’s constantly lying? You can’t. That’s why it is a myth to say their personal life doesn’t matter. It does matter -- all of leadership is built on credibility.

TAPPER: Would you have compunctions about voting for someone who had cheated on his wife?

WARREN: Absolutely I would. Absolutely I would. Because if you can’t keep your faith to your most sacred vow – “’til death do us part” -- how in the world can I trust you to lead my family? My government? My nation?...Absolutely I would. I think people first need to ask forgiveness and then earn trust back over time. Can trust be re-earned? Absolutely but it takes time.

I got my credential request in a little too late, but I am going to head down to survey the scene and give some kind of report.

The Enthusiasm Gap

I know that plenty of people have suggested that the hard right, with social conservatives foremost among them, would come back to the GOP nominee in November, because there are tribal forces that keep these Republicans, who feed more than anything on hatred of their opponents, coming back for more. And that is probably true. But there's more that the fundies and the hard-right conservatives did to win elections for George W., for example, beyond voting. We're five months out and this is entirely subject to change, but there are warning signs that John McCain has huge problems with just the kinds of voters who volunteer and do the ground work for practically every Republican campaign.

I don't know if it's longstanding suspicions or the unceremonious dumping of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, but McCain has serious problems with the evangelical community and the religious right, and his campaign is not doing a whole lot to alleviate those problems.

You represent some of the nation’s most powerful evangelicals. What do those leaders say about McCain?

This is one guy’s perspective, but I am surprised by how little I’ve seen or read in conservative circles about McCain since February. I don’t think I’ve gotten one email or letter or phone call from anybody in America in the last four months saying anything about this election or urging that we unite behind John McCain and put aside whatever differences we have. Back in the fall and winter, you’d get several things a day from conservatives saying, “The future of the Supreme Court is at stake. We have to stop Hillary Clinton. Get behind so and so—or don’t’ go with this guy.” It’s just very quiet. It could meant there’s a real sense of apathy or it could mean they’re’ waiting for the general election to begin. But it’s a surprise, given the way email networks work now.

That apathy is being reiterated again and again. These voters are unlikely to man the phone banks, stuff the envelopes, knock on the doors, and bug their neighbors to vote in November the way they did four years ago. Not to quote Novakula but he usually has good sources in conservative circles, and he's hearing the same thing. Dumping Hagee, who had ties to the Bush White House and a larger base of support than previously considered, has definitely caused some resentment. And if you needed even further confirmation, Pastor Dan at Street Prophets has it:

The Barna research indicates that the Christian community in the U.S. has largely shifted its loyalty to the Democratic nominee in this year’s race. In the 2004 election, 81% of evangelicals voted for the Republican incumbent George W. Bush. Currently, 78% of the likely voters who are evangelical expect to vote for Sen. McCain. Evangelicals represent 8% of the adult population and just 9% of all likely voters.

But the big news in the faith realm is the sizeable defection from Republican circles of the much larger non-evangelical born again and the notional Christian segments. The non-evangelical born again adults constitute 37% of the likely voters in November, and the notional Christians are expected to be 39% of the likely voters. Among the non-evangelical born again adults, 52% supported President Bush in 2004; yet, only 38% are currently supporting Sen. McCain, while 48% are siding with Sen. Obama. Although notional Christians voted for John Kerry in 2004 by an 11-point margin, that gap has more than doubled to 26 points in this year’s election. Protestants and Catholics have moved toward the Democratic challenger in equal proportions since 2004.

And they probably don't even know about McCain dumping the first wife yet.

And while Obama, as Tristero notes, holds views that the Dobsonites will view as a threat to their attempt to re-fashion a theocracy, he is most certainly going after voters of faith, most notably young voters through his Joshua Generation Project, which offers a different spin on religious values and how to manifest them in public policy instead of allowing the Bible to stand in for the Consttitution.

Here's the problem for McCain. He can't do the kind of dog-whistle outreach to these communities that Bush preferred because he was never seen as one of them. And if he presents himself as a hard-right social conservative more overtly, he ruins what is his only ace in the hole - the blurring strategy that allows independents to believe he's a moderate on all issues (Brave New Films destroys that myth today). Every religious right voter he attracts equals a moderate voter he loses. That's why it's so smart of Obama to play up this bind by constantly describing McCain as representing Bush's third term (which is true), and forcing McCain to disavow it, which just depresses his base even more.

And this is not limited to religious voters, but across the spectrum of the conservative right. Alarm bells should have been raised when McCain was still losing 25-30% of the vote in primaries three months after all his opponents dropped out. But the signals are coming into view. The Texas GOP is pissed off, thinking along with many of their colleagues that whoever wins, conservatives lose. Bush donors are hesitant to give a dollar to McCain. Tom DeLay said today that his wife is voting for Bob Barr. The Republican National Committee has signed up just one-sixth of the amount of volunteers for their convention as the Democrats have for theirs.

Part of this is the exponential growth of Democratic activism online, with which Republicans have thus far failed to compete:

According to the Congressional Management Foundation's recently released report on Congressional communications, 44% of Americans contacted a member of Congress in the last five years, a significant bump from 2004 and a number that far outstrips the total count of online donors. The report also goes on to point that the internet has become the primary vehicle for learning about and interacting with Congress, even though most people don't think that Congress is listening. The gist of the report is not just that people who are connected vote, and people who vote tend to be connected, but that connectivity is driving increased political interaction with decision-makers.

This will only increase in the years ahead, and frankly, if Obama didn't exist in this race, the country would invent him. Actblue's exponential growth - from less than a million in the 2004 to its current base - shows that the country is hungry for change and that a leadership base of committed organizers are running for office using new tools. Looking a bit beneath the surface of the Obama juggernaut, as Vargas did, shows that this army of people is real, and that it isn't just money they are giving. The 10 million people (at an extremely high end) who may donate to Obama, while extraordinary, is dwarfed by a rough factor of ten by the 44% of the country who have contacted Congress in the last five years.

The country is strengthening its flabby civic muscles, and learning how to be a committed and engaged citizenry. We haven't seen anything like this for a hundred years, if not more. And that's not even counting the younger generation, who grew up on this stuff.

But it's more than that - there's a noticeable enthusiasm gap for these particular candidates at this particular historical moment. It makes McCain's Vice Presidential pick both a huge opportunity and a huge gamble, again going back to the vice grip that conservatism has put itself in over the past few years. Tim Pawlenty may be able to deliver millions of evangelicals into the fold, but as that becomes noticed by independents wary of the influence of the religious right, he'd lose ground there, and a 2004-era base strategy doesn't have enough voters in it for McCain to win. Then again, a strategy which ignores the base doesn't either.

It's more than whether or not individual GOP voters will come out. Enthusiasm matters. It finds the voters that don't always cast a ballot. It drives cars so that those with special needs can get to the polling place. It helps knock down the inevitable scandals and furors that come with a national campaign. And all of that enthusiasm is on the Democratic side. I don't want to sound complacent, but that's a tremendous advantage.

The GOTV Gap

John McCain's faults have yet to be fully exposed in this Presidential campaign. His desire to be seen as an independent maverick yet also to be acceptable to the Republican base results in him flipping and flopping and flipping again on all sorts of issues, for example now saying it's unclear whether Bush's wiretapping was illegal despite saying he would continue it (novel, a President arguing FOR breaking the law). There are other issues, not fully explored by the public, where the fig leaf of independence and moderation is completely off base, like with respect to women's health issues. And he has a history of infidelity, leaving his first wife who was disfigured in a car accident for a second wife who bankrolled his political career, that is largely unknown to the public.

However, there is one group that's very aware of McCain's deficiencies and will not be likely to lift a finger to help him get elected, and that's the evangelical community. I doubt that this is limited to Ohio:

As the architect of Ohio's ballot measure against gay marriage, Phil Burress helped draw thousands of conservative voters to the polls in 2004, most of whom also cast ballots to reelect President Bush. So Burress was not surprised when two high-level staffers from John McCain's campaign dropped by his office, asking for his help this fall.

What surprised Burress was how badly the meeting went. He says he tried but failed to make the McCain team understand how much work remained to overcome the skepticism of social conservatives. Burress ended up cutting off the campaign officials as they spoke. "He doesn't want to associate with us," Burress now says of McCain, "and we don't want to associate with him."

That meeting and other run-ins with conservatives, some Republicans say, have revealed the depth of the challenge facing McCain: mollifying Republican constituencies that have distrusted many of his policy positions, in order to build the machinery needed to push voters to the polls in November.

If McCain tried to gather his volunteers in Ohio, "you could meet in a phone booth," said radio host Bill Cunningham, who attacks the Arizona senator regularly on his talk show. "There's no sense in this part of Ohio that John McCain is a conservative or that his election would have a material benefit to conservatism."

Social conservatives are likely to vote for John McCain, if they get around to it that day. But there's unlikely to do anything else. They won't stuff an envelope, they won't walk a precinct, they won't make a phone call. On Election Day 2004, this group make up most of George Bush's ground army, the ones that implemented the 72-hour plan for victory.

By contrast, Barack Obama, who has his own problems with rural voters in Southern Ohio, isn't going to be wanting for volunteers. He's going to have activists fanning out across the country, putting the voter outreach projects already seen during the primary campaign to work in the general election. That's going to be a significant gap, and it's the kind of thing that tips elections to the side with the most ground troops doing GOTV.

More On McCain's Bind

I hear that Barack Obama went after John McCain on his flip-flop on taxes. That's great, and I hope we'll see more of it, but you can't really expect the Democratic candidates to have a major focus on McCain right now. They have to run against one another right now. In a way, getting hundreds of thousands of new Democrats to register in Pennsylvania is more effective than making some statement against McCain, so I'm not so concerned about that. And considering that labor will be going all in to define McCain right now, I'm even more unconcerned by the negatives of an extended campaign.

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union organization, will announce plans Wednesday for a $53 million effort to elect a Democrat to the White House.

John McCain greets employees at Savvis Inc. during a campaign stop in St. Louis, Mo., Tuesday. (Associated Press)
The AFL-CIO will rely on one of the oldest strategies in the political playbook: Define your opponent before your opponent defines himself. The labor organization will launch its “McCain Revealed” campaign to paint McCain as anti-worker and to tie him to the economic policies of President Bush. The AFL-CIO, which is an umbrella group for dozens of large national labor unions, has tailored messages about McCain for each of its member unions. Members of the American Federation of Teachers will get information about where McCain stands on education, for example.

That'll be important in old labor states in the Rust Belt. Meanwhile, McCain is still in a tremendous bind. He is being defined by Democratic groups as the same as Bush, and yet people like Tony Perkins are demanding that he move further to the right, which only validates these Democratic claims. And the result of that bind is relationships with people like this:

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the "spiritual desperation" of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual "culture" ("homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree"), the "abortion industry," and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.

In a chapter titled "Islam: The Deception of Allah," Parsley warns there is a "war between Islam and Christian civilization." He continues:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

I know that the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock with the expressed purpose of defiance against Allah. That just the kind of religious freedom they sought.

McCain's really in trouble. He uses the rhetoric of a progressive reformer while accepting the sludge of lobbyists and evangelical nutcases. Further, he doesn't even UNDERSTAND the rhetoric he uses.

In general, (Theodore) Roosevelt does not seem to think, as today's conservatives tend to, that the government is a necessarily inefficient and generally counterproductive force best used only in cases, like the national defense, where there is no workable alternative. He agrees with today's progressives, who tend to think that while of course the government should be made as efficient and flexible as possible, used well, it can help us to set the terms of economic activity in ways that benefit everyone, and ameliorate some problems that we, as a people, decide we should not have to live with. He seems to see government as an essential tool for achieving some collective goals; and while he seems quite clear that that tool must be used wisely and with skill, he does not seem to think that our efforts to use it will inevitably be counterproductive. To judge by this speech, he would have been baffled by Ronald Reagan's quip: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

If McCain wants to sign on to the idea of using government to ameliorate social problems, requiring employers to insure their employees against illness, unemployment, accident, and age, providing a living wage, and keeping people from falling too far into want and penury, it's news to me.

These discrepancies are going to come out in the fall. Trapped in a vice, needing to excite base conservatives and simultaneously run away from them, dozens of contradictions and unfortunate partnerships are going to come to the surface.

McCain Acknowledges Danger Of Bush Endorsement

I found this to be extremely interesting. Mort Kondracke seems to me to be someone who would be privy to the inside information in the McCain camp.

I know, as a matter of fact, that they’re talking in the McCain camp about ways to separate themselves in some way from Bush, and they haven’t figured out how to do it–some issue that he can be distinctive from Bush about.

Clearly it’s not going to be the war. It’s not going to be tax cuts. It has got to be something reasonably major so that the Democrats can’t say this is just the third term.

This is why the McSame ads and label is so very important. His campaign undoubtedly has some polling that shows how vulnerable he is, and indeed how vulnerable any Republican is, to this critique. Indeed, he doesn't even need polling. He can look at the 2006 election.

The reason he's so vulnerable is because it's so very, very true. McCain being a maverick notwithstanding, the policies line up almost perfectly, we all know it, and I suspect that he knows it.

But of course, McCain's in a double-bind. The moment he departs from Bush on any signature issue is the moment that the conservative ideologues who are suspicious of his motives get confirmation that he will indeed stab them in the back to get votes. Exactly where is he going to take a U-Turn? He's boxed in on all of these signature issues and would face a major backlash:

TORTURE: Despite McCain’s reputation as an opponent of torture, he has consistently supported legislative language that protects the Bush administration’s prerogatives to use it. Most recently, McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding and urged President Bush to veto the bill.

SURVEILLANCE: Echoing Bush in his CPAC speech this year, McCain called it “shameful and dangerous” for Democrats to oppose a surveillance bill that contains retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. He then voted “to terminate lawsuits against” those companies.

IMMIGRATION: In 2005, McCain told the New Yorker that “the President and I share exactly the same views on the issue.”

SOCIAL SECURITY: In 2005, McCain was “a big booster” of Bush’s Social Security privatization plan and last week he told the Wall Street Journal that as president he wants to reform Social Security through private savings accounts “along the lines that President Bush proposed.”

HEALTH CARE: After examining his health care plan, the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn recently concluded that McCain will act “like George W. Bush” as he supports policy ideas that “President Bush has embraced.”

Republicans created this monster, saddled themselves with a host of issues that are unpalatable to independents and the general public, and boxed in their candidates 'til the end of time. This is why McCain's down on the electoral map despite this so-called "bruising" primary, because ultimately he's a faceless Republican. And that means George Bush.

This is coming to a head with the John Hagee situation. While the media has been reluctant to really nail McSame for his hypocrisy over supporting an anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic end-timer (possibly because they consider all evangelicals to be crazy and not understanding the crucial distinctions with Hagee), today Nancy Pelosi weighed in. She's the highest-ranking Catholic in the US government, and she represents the potential to close "Daou's triangle" and really make this a signature issue that the media couldn't ignore any longer.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent Catholic serving in the U.S. government, called on Sen. John McCain to reject the endorsement of Texas televangelist John Hagee, who has labeled the Catholic church "the great whore," a "false cult system," and linked it to Hitler's Nazi movement.

"That behavior is outside the circle of civilized debate in our democracy," Pelosi said during a Thursday conference call. "I certainly think John McCain should reject his endorsement and I'm sure it won't be long before he does."

McCain has come under heavy fire from Catholic groups across the political spectrum for appearing with Hagee last week and declaring he was "proud" of the endorsement. Subsequently, McCain told reporters that Hagee's backing "does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes," but added, "I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee's spiritual leadership to thousands of people."

This will KILL McCain among Catholics if he doesn't disassociate himself with Hagee, and that's key to several important states in the Rust Belt. But if he rejects Hagee's support, he angers many evangelicals in a symbolic way, as well as conservative activists who want to keep the three-legged stool somehow upright.

McCain absolutely knows he's in trouble and he doesn't see a way out. And there are also the lobbying scandals and his illegal exit from the campaign finance system.

Delicious.

The Huck-a-boom

Digby writes an excellent post about Huckabee's victory in Iowa, and how he's the only candidate that manages to be inspiring to any segment of the Republican base. The establishment is raging against him, but it might not work this time. At the end she mentions "This might be their 1972." I think that's an extremely apt comparison.

It's important to understand why McGovern got destroyed that year. It certainly wasn't because he was such a dirty fucking hippie. It's because the establishment, having proven unable to stop him with their lame cast of characters, knee-capped him. I wrote about this during the Lieberman-Lamont primary.

FACT: The McGovern campaign of 1972 had its most vociferous opponents on his own side of the aisle. Ed Muskie was the favorite going into that year's election. The DLC's Al From was running a subcommittee for him at the time. Henry "Scoop" Jackson was one of his opponents that year. Jackson's top campaign advisor was Richard Perle. It was Jackson, not the Republicans, who used the phrase "acid, amnesty and abortion" to describe the McGovern platform. His people-powered campaign represented a major threat to the institutional forces of the party (sound familiar?). After winning the Wisconsin Primary, the powers that be drafted Hubert Humphrey and sent him into the race as the "Anyone But McGovern" candidate. In a famous debate, Humphrey suggested very directly that McGovern's plan to reduce defense spending would "sweep the Army and Navy off the table." ALL of these smears and slurs were used by the Nixon campaign in the fall. They ALL came from inside the party, from the wing that is now largely the modern neoconservative movement.

Establishment Democrats never came on board with McGovern's campaign, fighting him at the convention tooth and nail. The reason McGovern's amazing "Come Home, America" nominating speech happened at 3am ET was because of the massive floor fight engaged to knock him out of the race. Humphrey supporters tried to change the rules with respect to California's delegates after agreeing to the rules in the first place. This futile attempt took up weeks leading up to the convention, and lasted all night on the floor. Party rules mandated that a Vice Presidential candidate come out of the convention, and honestly the McGovern campaign was too busy securing the nomination to even consider it. They went through many choices because establishment figures were pressured not to join up with him. Boston Mayor Kevin White was on the verge of receiving the nod, but the Kennedy clan found him unacceptable. This chaos led to the choice of Maryland Senator Tom Eagleton, who had a history of mental illness and was eventually dumped from the ticket. More than anything, this stalled any momentum they could have gained. Intra-party squabbling was a major part of all of this. George Meany, an old lion of the establishment, refused to let the AFL-CIO endorse McGovern. Labor was a far bigger factor in elections at the time.

The Democratic Party had a vested interest in sandbagging the McGovern campaign then, as surely as its offspring today have a vested interest in using McGovern as an example of a liberal hippie counterculture that would destroy the party. It was done to protect little fiefdoms, to ensure corporate dominance and to keep intact the warmaking machine.

Despite all that, there was no stopping McGovern from getting the nomination because the people decided in the primaries, and they dismissed the establishment figures cautioning against him. They were mad and tired of being taken for granted. It's perfectly analogous to Huckabee today. I don't care how much Swift Boat money John McCain gets, that won't change the mind of a Southern evangelical. As Digby says:

They've been voting for religious phonies for a couple of decades now in the hopes that he would advance their religious agenda and represent their values. This time they have the real thing and they know it. And they could not care less what moneyed elites like Chris Matthews and Joe Klein --- or Rush Limbaugh --- think about it.

Huckabee's not losing. I'm telling you.

More on the Conservative Crackup

This is getting pretty hilarious. The right-wing elites, the royalists who believe they own the party and must never give anything to their whackjob base except a few friendly words and a meaningless phrase about being pro-life in the party platform, is having a full-on snit fit over the prospect of Mike Huckabee and his Christian Army sweeping to the nomination. They're literally going out of their skulls about it. Peggy Noonan, who earlier called the base of the party "idiots," is now saying that Ronald Reagan would be rejected by the modern GOP. Charles Krauthammer is appalled of the temerity of these voters, to think they can actually pick the candidate of their choosing. Winger bloggers like the Ace of Spades and Dan Riehl are claiming they'll vote Democratic if Huckabee is the nominee.

This is, frankly, a scream. The uptight economic conservatives had no problem with the Jesus freaks in their coalition as long as they didn't actually have any power. George Bush loved the Lord because he "changed muh heart," but he was a Kennebunkport man at the root, dedicated to the anti-tax, corporate-welfare, crony-capitalism, shock-doctrine agenda. Huckabee isn't just putting on the airs of the religious right, he is one of them. And he believes in the whole Bible, and won't cotton to the massive payouts to the upper classes and the endless march of the war machine.

These guys love to claim that Democrats have no religion and worship no God and live in a world of moral oblivion, but boy, they sure squirm around when faced with an actual religious figure as their standard-bearer, don't they? I'm not sure if this is because they think Huckabee would get killed in November and expose the Republican Party as a small regional phenomenon, or if they just don't want to give the theocons actual power for fear of the havoc they would wreak, for fear of the religio-political amalgam that would result. In fact, we've already seen hints of this, with anti-science nuts in powerful positions of government and some military leaders, particularly in the Air Force, who see themselves as Christian warriors.

But this is clearly a case of the GOP making their bed and now wanting to avoid lying in it. They worshipped at the altar, sometimes literally, of the fundie forces out in the so-called Heartland, and their little bait-and-switch isn't working anymore. There have been a number of gleeful commentaries about this, but the best is clearly from the great James Wolcott.

(Bush's compassionate conservative shtick) doesn't sound so very different to me than the compassionate conservativism Mike Huckabee is espousing, as when he rebuked Mitt Romney over wanting to deny college aid to children of illegal immigrants. But now that Mike Huckabee has flapped his arms and scattered the pigeons, jeopardizing the candidacies of expensive empty suits such as Romney and Fred Thompson, not to mention Giuliani's big-state gameplan, the media's collective bobblehead brain trust has rediscovered the virtues of secular firewalls and tucking faith in the vest pocket rather than draping yourself in velvet yards of it. For the last seven years we've been subjected to hero-worshipping prose about Bush's faith and fortitude and his appealing to a "higher father" for guidance and succor, and saintly photographs of the presidential seal forming a golden halo around Bush's warrior profile (Lucianne.com loved running such jawline porn). And for longer than seven years, Democrats have been caricatured and reviled as the party that harbors hostility and sneery condescension towards people of faith and established religion, a godless sect barely indisguishable from a postmodern pagan cult [...]

There was a certain smugness in being able to count on the evangelical wing voting Republican and being sewn up as part of the permanent Rovian majority. But now the permanent Republican majority is a leaking sandbag and the front runner status of a Mormon or thrice-married Catholic threatens to incur the resentment of evangelicals, who don't enjoy feeling they're just allowed to be along for the ride as long as they don't dictate the parade route.

And let us say: Amen.

UPDATE: I forgot this gem from David Frum:

It also has to be admitted: Many of us on the conservative side have fed this monster. (Rightly) aghast at the abuse of expertise by liberal judges, liberal bureaucrats and liberal academics, we have sometimes over-reacted by denying the importance of expertise altogether.

Oh that's rich. It's also misplaced. Conservatives were NEVER interested in government. They may be prioritizing "heart" or "values" now, but it was the principle of "limited government" then, which meant the same thing: do nothing of substance to anyone but the CEOs. They're just upset that people have taken notice.

The Politics of "I Hope You Didn't Hear That"

The conclusion of the Obama campaign gospel concert with anti-gay activist Donnie McClurkin was ugly.

The whole controversy might have been forgotten in the swell of gospel sound except Mr. McClurkin turned the final half hour of the three-hour concert into a revival meeting about the lightning rod he has become for the Obama campaign.

He approached the subject gingerly at first. Then, just when the concert had seemed to reach its pitch and about to end, Mr. McClurkin returned to it with a full-blown plea: “Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have suffered the same feelings,” he cried.

“God delivered me from homosexuality,” he added. He then told the audience to believe the Bible over the blogs: “God is the only way.” The crowd sang and clapped along in full support....

Mr. McClurkin’s support for Mr. Obama could signal to some black evangelical voters that race and religion are more important than Mr. Obama’s support for gay rights.

And the gay preacher brought in to represent the other side, I guess, said a short prayer, said nothing about his sexual orientation, and left.

Well, Barack achieved his purpose - signaling that he's "one of you guys" to black evangelicals. I wonder if it was worth it to sell out an entire class of Americans.