Hating God and Republicans
Kathleen Parker hates Sarah Palin, that much we knew from her poison pen columns. Now the cat’s out of the bag as to why: it’s because Palin is a Christian. In Parker’s view, Palin’s religion – that of the most solid part of the Republican base – is responsible for the party’s failures at the ballot box over the last 4 years.
Nonsense. The Bush administration’s incompetence was like hot pink lipstick on a Democratic pig – just enough to make independent voters lay a big wet one on him while holding their noses.
Parker:
The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.
But they need those votes!
So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.
Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.
Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.
What a drama queen, bravely facing the firing squad of conservative commentators after one last puff on her cancer stick.
For all of Parker’s demographic hyperbole, the 2008 election was nothing more than a referendum on the departing president’s policies and (lack of) achievements. What’s more, I think she, like others in the media, star-struck by Barack Obama, knows that and is working hard to try to make people believe that something more happened two weeks ago.
The Obama change movement was all about getting rid of President Bush and anyone associated with him. Who can blame voters for that? Not me. But let’s not make more of it that what it was.
Republicans would be ill-advised to let media pundits with anti-Christian agendas like Parker’s drive a wedge between social and fiscal conservatives. Both wings of the party are needed to create a strong, broad base of appeal and to promote the right policies for the country. Dissolution of that coalition would mean decades of Democratic rule – the exact thing that this country can’t afford to have happen and the very notion that an overly liberal media has now overtly embraced.
Since both Obama and Biden are Christians themselves, it seems like a rather specious argument.
And this is the inevitable quote:
“Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows.”
Ah yes, those ignorant evangelicals.
And so why did Sen. Obama seek them out and get a substantial number of there younger ranks and an overwhelming number of their African-American ranks? Or is it just Republican evangelicals that are stupid?
I don’t agree with Parker that the religious right was a factor in the party’s loss. You could actually argue they would have had a role to play in a win if it just wasn’t the year for Republicans already. Three states passed a gay marriage ban this year and two of them voted for Obama.
Where I do agree is that the RR should play less of a role in the party. Perhaps you’ll disagree, Marc, but as the country does get less white and Christian (or less religious as a whole as has been happening for years), the Republicans will need to find new ways to gain new members or face becoming a niche party more in the mold of the Constitution Party (but without the conspiracy theories).
In that situation, the Republicans might perhaps support, but place less emphasis on, religious issues.
And I don’t know that Parker is anti-Christian, since she took an entire paragraph to argue that there is still a place for religion in the public square, and appears to support a Judeo-Christian value system. I can only go by what I read, though. Maybe you have more evidence for her being anti-Christian than I do.