John Cole and some others see a rift in the GOP centering on Huckabee’s Old Time Religion. Personally, I don’t think it would be as noticeable without Romney. It’s easier to make vague statements about religion and claim that you’re only against those dreaded human secularists when you don’t have to explain why Romney’s Mormonism is a problem. Then it becomes apparent that a non-trivial segment of the GOP’s constituents want to promote a particular kind of religion. And that’s when the problems start. Could be a fun election year.
Update Blue Indiana has an excellent post on a column by Sylvia Smith that reports on the small-minded Mark Souder.
Says Souder:
“I’m unhappy that (President) Bush says we all serve the same God. I don’t agree with that. We have freedom to worship. We have freedom of expression. But that does not mean every religion is equal and good and right.
“Fundamentally, it’s wrong,” Souder said of Islam because part of the Quran refers to killing infidels. “I find their religion offensive.”
“The fundamentals of their religion is they want to kill Jews and wipe them off the face of the earth and any other allies. I simply am not going to praise a religion that believes that. I believe Jews are God’s chosen people,” Souder said. “It’s fundamental in their faith, from the very beginning, that Jews are dogs and should be wiped from the face of the earth. Why is that great?”
Souder is an ignorant piece of crap if he thinks that is the fundamental basis of Islam. Yup, just like Christians are all about bombing abortion clinics. I mean, I don’t subscribe to either religion. But, jeeze, if you’re going to condemn a religion, at least bother to know something about it.
Nevermind the fact that the Old Testament is full of God telling the Jews to wipe out other groups of people. Talk about fundamentals, what was the wandering in the desert and slaughtering the other tribes of the area? Jericho, anyone? Anyone? Jericho?
We might point out that John Cole was one of those economic/libertarian Republicans who, with the Schiavo case of January 2005, was shocked, shocked! to learn he was sharing a party with a bunch of religious whackos. Kreskin, he ain’t.
I find it gratuituous to assume that Huckabee’s support is coming from the single- (and simple-) minded religious bigots which the likes of Peggy Noonan suddenly find so threatening, or that they’d somehow all be nice little Mitt supporters if Huckabee wasn’t rilin’ ’em up. Does anyone really need a religious reason to oppose Romney?
I mean, I agree with you that Romney’s the cause of all this with his panic over Iowa forcing him to make The Speech too early, and his Iowa numbers suggesting his combination of Big Business boosterism and social-issue shape-shifting isn’t going to play. Which seems to me to be the sensible position.
Bil –
But to give them due credit, they haven’t been doing that for a couple of millenia…
For all the naysaying about Ron Paul, he raised another cool $6 million in one day yesterday. Perhaps he’s the real rift in the Republican party.
Incidently the average Ron Paul donation is just $50. Recently Paulites, who are unofficial grassroots campaigners, raised enough money to buy a blimp to fly around the country as a gathering point for the huge masses of Ron Paul supporters nation wide.
No other candidate has the ability to bring together this level of grassroots support, nor the ability to raise this kind of cash in a single day. Keep in mind, we are not even to the primaries yet!
I predict Ron Paul will win the presidency in spite of the media nearly shutting him out
after the May debates that he clearly swept.
By the way, who predicted Ballard’s win? Answer: his grass roots support