Deal Hudson on "What the Election Means for Religious Conservatives"

Deal Hudson brings another perspective to the elections (What the Election Means for Religious Conservatives Nov. 15, 2006:

In a national conference call with religious conservatives, Sen. Sam Brownback said that President Bush squandered the mandate of the 2004 election by pursuing social security reform when he could have taken action on an important social issue, such as the federal marriage issue.

He also rejected the idea that the election represented a repudiation of social conservatism because the Democrats who were recruited to beat incumbent Republicans were precisely that, social conservatives! Six of the Democrat freshmen are pro-life -- the biggest group since the eighties.

Pro-abortion Republicans, Brownback pointed out, were the biggest losers. A dozen of them are not coming back and that represents about half their total. Congressional Democrats, as a result of who won, are slightly more conservative than before, while Republicans are significantly more conservative.

Patrick Hynes, author of In Defense of the Religious Right, asked Sen. Brownback what religious conservatives can learn from their five losses on ballot questions: Arizona's same-sex marriage amendment, California's parental notification initiative; Oregon's parental notification initiative; Missouri's embryonic stem cell and human cloning initiative; and South Dakota's abortion ban.

Sen. Brownback stated that in Missouri, social conservatives were out-spent 20-to-1 and every major Republican state office holder, including the governor, supported the measure. Nevertheless, the measure only passed with 50.3 percent of the vote.

Regarding South Dakota, Sen. Brownback suggested that going for the full ban with no exceptions for rape and incest may have been a mistake. Nevertheless, he applauded the initiative as a courageous effort to launch an important national debate.

Sen. Brownback agreed that the failure to pass the same-sex marriage amendment in Arizona is of great concern. Arizona, he said, became the first state in the country to reject such a ban by democratic means. Sen. Brownback echoed a previously expressed sentiment that religious conservatives need to work especially hard in the interior west Sunbelt region to counter a vibrant libertarian sentiment. . . .READ THE REST

Republicans Chastened in Typical 6th Year Mid-Term Election

The election results as of this hour follow. Democrats gain 27 seats in the House and so control. Now, the House consists of 229 Democrats to 198 Republicans. Republicans can win the House again with new leadership and with dynamic, forceful, and imaginative opposition to the Democrat lunacy you can expect over the next two years. One key factor last night that the media will likely not focus on: the Democrats won in some places by running candidates with conservative Republican views. That means that in some districts where Democrats gained seats conservatism still is the reigning political philosophy. It will be interesting to see if House Republicans can form a strategic alliance with those conservative "Democrats," as was done during the Reagan years.


Senate control is still undecided. It looks like the results in Montana will decide if we get a Republican Senate to review the next Supreme Court nomination. Pray for Montana. The big shocker last night was the loss in Missouri. The great blessing in the Senate races was the win in Tennessee. So, as of now, the Senate numbers are 49 Republicans and 47 Democrats, with 2 undecided (Virginia and Montana). The other big disappointment last night was the apparent loss of Michael Steele for Maryland Senate. Steele would have been a great addition to the Senate as an African-American Republican. The Republican Party deserves credit for recruiting him as a candidate and for also recruiting African-American candidates for governor in Ohio and Pennsylvania. One day we will break the dysfunctional Democratic stranglehold on the African-American vote.


My observations on the election:


1. It's time, as noted before, for dynamic and forceful opposition based on a consistent, bold conservative philosophy. The Democrats offer nothing constructive for the nation. It will be easy to expose that.


2. Build a working alliance with new and old conservative Democrats in the House, as in the Reagan era.


3. Put pressure on the Iraqis to stop the sectarian fighting soon, or seriously consider partition once and for all. With partition, the U.S. can support its real allies in Iraq and take specific aim at its enemies (those who harbor terrorists), instead of continuing to wait on dysfunctional Iraqi politicians to get their act together. Partition may be the key to separating the sheep from the goats and thus bring clarity to the conflict. Partition may also deny terrorists the chance to take over an intact nation-state with great oil wealth.


4. Note that a two bans on "gay marriage" passed-- in Tennessee and in Virginia. Also, note that a conservative Christian Republican Sarah Palin won the Senate seat in Alaska against a veteran Democratic politician. She is a great fresh face for true conservatives. And, speaking of true conservatives, it is a good thing that a Republican liberal like Chafee lost in Rhode Island. It's a welcome purging of a pro-abortion Republican. Also, note that in Michigan, a proposal to ban traditional affirmative action approaches passed. That means that public institutions will be forced to find creative ways to help the economically disadvantaged of all races without creating racial conflict. The fact that Michigan, a state that tilts Democratic, passed the ban is a sign that we need to leave racial preferences behind in the quest for social justice. School vouchers are the best way to attain the just goals of genuine affirmative action. So Republican losses don't necessarily mean a defeat for conservatism.


5. Now is a great opportunity for the President to come out swinging and take bold, challenging initiatives. He will hold a news conference today at 1 p.m. The losses for the Republicans in the sixth year of a Republican White House are historically typical for the incumbent party. It's the typical price you pay for winning the presidency twice in a row. The presidency is worth that price. Here is the historical perspective from a Washington Post article from earlier this year (January 29, 2006):


History appears to favor the Democrats. Midterm elections in the sixth year of a two-term presidency have proved particularly difficult for the party in the White House. Republicans suffered significant losses in the midterm elections of 1958, 1974 and 1986, the sixth year of presidency for Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively. Democrats took a bath in 1966, the sixth year of the combined administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.


But there was a notable anomaly. In 1998, aided by public backlash against Republican calls for impeachment, Democrats gained seats in the House and held even in the Senate in Bill Clinton's sixth year in office.

Whether that was an aberration or the disintegration of the pattern of the "six-year itch" will not be clear until November. Nor will it be clear, even if the Democrats gain nominal ground in November, whether that signals a broader shift away from the Republicans that could carry over to 2008 or was merely an outcome typical of midterm elections.


"Bush's Midterm Challenge," Washington Post, Jan. 29, 2006, by Dan Balz, at this link.


Adversity breeds character, initiative, boldness, dynamism, and clarity. Take the gift and run with it.

Elections 2006

Just a brief roundup of posts, perhaps updated as the evening progresses. Oswald Sobrino has a post as well. And of course ongoing election night chatter from the National Review.

• Voting with Michael Steele, by Sonny Bunch. Weekly Standard Nov. 7, 2006, on the woes of being a Black Conservative Republican:

  Standing in line to vote with his wife, the pair wearing matching blue Under Armour windbreakers, Steele was surrounded by folks who clearly had no desire to vote for him. They made snide comments behind his back. "They're just trying to trick us, but we know better," exclaimed one elderly woman. She went on to explain that Steele's great "trick" was not cutting to the front, but instead choosing to stand in line like everyone else. . . .

• For Orson Scott Card, there is only one issue this election day RealClear Politics Nov. 6, 2006:

  [A]s a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.

  But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

  (Response & discussion over at Jimmmy Akin's)

• Paul Zummo ("The Cranky Conservative") mirrors my thoughts -- "Ideologically this election is a clear choice.":

  Steele is a true blue, Catholic conservative. I was impressed by him the first time I saw him speak at a Knight of Columbus gathering last winter. He's an engaging speaker who has full command of the political scene, and he's on the same page as me on the issues that truly matter. So, there was never any doubt as to whether or not I would vote for him.

  But as the campaign has progressed, it's become much more important to me to see him win. This morning I saw a picture of Ben Cardin, and I think it was the first time I had seen his face during the campaign. That should give you an indication of the absolutely atrocious campaign that the invisible man has run. On the other hand, Steele has run one of the most magnificent campaigns I have ever observed. Sure, the puppy add might have been a bit of fluff, but it was also a smart ad that showed that Steele was a little different from the rest. His campaign has accentuated the positive, a stark contrast to Cardin, and especially the pathetic Webb-Allen fiasco (more on that in a second).

  Cardin's basic line of attack is basically to accuse Steele of actually liking George Bush. While that sort of campaign makes copious amounts of sense in a heavily Democratic state, and I can't really blame Cardin for taking advantage of Bush's unpopularity, the lack of substance truly aggravates me. On every level I want Steele to pull this out.

• Domenico Bettinelli, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have much of a choice (Whither the Catholic Voter?" ):

  There’s the dark warning that if you don’t go to the polls and vote for your Republican candidate, then the evil Democrats will win. On the other hand, what if there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two on issues that matter to me? In Massachusetts, both the Republican and Democrat candidates are pro-abortion, pro-embryonic stem cell research, and effectively pro-gay marriage. (The Republican supports civil unions which are gay marriage in all but name.) So what’s left? Taxes?

The Wall Street Journal is providing An hour-by-hour guide to tonight's Election results. Stay tuned. . . .

Barone on House Elections

Here is the link to the Michael Barone Blog. Barone, as regular readers of my blog know, is my favorite political analyst (he also has a Michigan connection since he grew up in the Detroit suburbs). Barone sees a close House election with ultimate control resting on turn-out and possibly--quite interestingly--on some conservative Democrats refusing to vote for a Speaker Pelosi. I wouldn't be surprised to see some conservative Democrats switching to Republican if the results are very close. So two practical things to consider: first, go out and vote Republican and remind other pro-life voters to make sure they vote Republican on November 7th, and, second, don't believe the liberal media hype about a Democrat "wave" election. Most important of all: pray that the pro-life party retains control of all of Congress.

The Elections

I vaguely recall that Teddy Roosevelt once said something about being in the ring, about not standing off to the side, and instead joining the fray. Such a statement would have been characteristic of the ball of energy that was Teddy Roosevelt. Here is the full quote from the Theodore Roosevelt Association website:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.

I think we need more Teddy Roosevelts among Catholics and other Christians. The Church calls lay Catholics to be involved in politics. Such involvement means at least in part that we must pray about politics. It's time to start praying.

The media is now full of dire predictions about Republican losses in Congress in the upcoming Nov. 7th elections. I won't believe it until I see it. If indeed these great losses materialize--losses that the biased liberal media is panting for and actively campaigning for in its coverage and timing of its paid polls, then we know that God will draw a greater good out of them.

But in the meantime, I say again: start praying. Pray in your own words. I pray this: that the pro-life party, the Republican Party, may win and retain control of both the House and the Senate so that more pro-life judges can be appointed on the Supreme Court and on other courts and so that pro-death legislation relating to embryonic research can continue to be blocked. May they win so that the ambitious gay agenda can be blocked. May they win so that further restrictions can be placed on the hourly massacre on the unborn and partially born that is abortion. May they win so that we retain the will to fight the forces of evil out to destroy anyone who does not bow the knee to Islam. May they win so that those who want to spread the demonic contraception mentality of self-prostitution to more and more young people will not gain power.

As laity, we are obligated to be politically involved. Our greatest weapon is our prayer. But too often we have been deceived into thinking that, although many pray (sometimes even during the liturgy) for the victory of an athletic team, we cannot pray for the victory of a specific political party. Speaking for myself, I feel obligated in conscience to pray for the victory on November 7th of the Republican Party for all the reasons you already knew and that I have repeated above to remind us. As Teddy Roosevelt would have said, this is no time to adopt an Olympian indifference or air of distant, pious superiority.

The Democrats offer no sane alternative. They retain the pro-death, pro-promiscuity, pro-gay agenda they have embraced now for years. They are lying low and trying to win on the sly by not revealing their true agenda. Let's make sure they don't get the chance to start again the social engineeering that has gutted the national moral character of an entire nation since the late sixties.

Election Day November 7th

As a lay Catholic, I am ready to take a stand on the upcoming Congressional elections on Nov. 7th. Vote Republican. There is only one major party in America today that will protect the unborn, defy the "gay marriage" agenda, assist educational efforts to turn the tide against the contraception/promiscuity culture that is foisted on young people, embrace school vouchers (the most effective social justice , anti-discrimination, and anti-poverty program in America), and support faith-based social action programs against the epidemic of substance abuse in our country. In addition to these social justice issues (yes, the struggle against abortion, the contraception mentality, and the gay agenda is a social justice matter because justice demands obeying the truth about human dignity denied by abortion, the contraception mentality, and the gay agenda), as American citizens, we also face the threat of an Islamist war to destroy us. Only the Republicans will persist in fighting the enemy with whatever it takes at home and abroad. If you want a socially just domestic culture and taking the offensive against Islamic radicalism, then vote Republican.

There is no "social justice" agenda different from the efforts to take on the above social issues. What liberals offer is more of the same tired old social programs that keep people in dependency, many times in a dependency marked by substance abuse. What liberals offer is encouraging the current promiscuity among many by continuing to push the contraception mentality among rising generations. What liberals offer is a blank check to the gay agenda. Notice, incidentally, how the Democrats are not focused on the immorality of the actual behavior of the Florida congressman in the current House page e-mail/instant message scandal: the Democrats are just focused on trying to exploit the scandal for electoral purposes. The liberal Democrats will never condemn the "gay" fascination with pursuing teenage males. In fact, one Democratic congressman in the nineteen eighties was merely censured (reprimanded) by the Democratic-controlled Congress for engaging in sexual acts with a minor in the House page program. That Democrat, unlike the just resigned Republican congressman who apparently did not engage in sexual acts with a minor, kept his Massachusetts congressional seat for many more years thereafter after being protected by the Democratic congressional leadership in the eighties.

There is a focused, calculated media assault prominently led by the N.Y. Times to get a Democratic-controlled Congress. A Democratic Congress would be a disaster for the domestic health of the nation and for the offensive against Islamic terrorists. A Democratic Senate would be a disaster for future appointments to the Supreme Court. So, on Nov. 7th, vote Republican if you want to see your country not go further down the path of the benighted, secularized nations of Western Europe. If you don't want the U.S. to become another France addicted to domestic amorality and appeasement abroad, vote for the Republican candidate in your local elections on November 7th. Don't fall for the mainstream media campaign to distract from the real Democratic agenda of more secularization and of appeasement.

Some Thoughts on Mark Shea, Joseph Leiberman and Ned Lamont

Siding with (and citing) Pat Buchanan, Mark Shea takes issue with the (neo)conservative embrace of Sen. Joseph Lieberman:

Last year, Joe's rating by Americans for Democratic Action was 80. The ACLU gave him an 83, the NAACP an 85, the AFL-CIO a 92, LULAC a perfect 100. In 2004, Joe got a 100 rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League and a zero from National Right to Life. His American Conservative Union rating was zero. His Christian Coalition rating was zero. The National Rifle Association, which grades by letters, gave Joe a big, fat "F."

But as long as you support war in Lebanon, war in Iraq and a "war-fighting Republican Party," in the Weekly Standard's phrase, you get a pass on everything else. Beat the drum for permanent war for global democracy and against Islamo-fascism, and all other sins are forgiven you.

Such is the state of conservatism, 2006. [Source: The meaning of Connecticut", Pat Buchanan World Net Daily August 10, 2006]:

Mark links directly to Buchanan's editorial, but fails to provide readers with the original essay by Kristol (Anti-war, Anti-Israel, anti-Joe: The New Democrats, Weekly Standard 08/14/2006, Volume 011, Issue 45). I'd like to forego the paraphrasing and examine what William Kristol actually thinks:

The key point in Kristol's essay is that "You fight the global war against jihadist Islam with the political parties you have." Not necessarily, he might have added, with the political parties you desire.

As Kristol observes, we have the Republican Party, led by President Bush, whose "heart and mind are mostly in the right place. Its performance as a governing party in time of war is, admittedly, another matter." Despite some legitimate criticisms on what he perceives as a dearth of leadership (Kristol has strong words for Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and has sharply criticized the Bush administration's handling of the war in the past),

". . . at least we have a president who knows we are at war with jihadist Islam. And he is willing to stake his presidency on that fight, and to support others, like Israel, who are in the same fight."

Kristol goes on to recognize a similar disposition in the person of Joseph Lieberman, who has distinguished himself from a Democratic party which -- to quote William Bennett -- "think[s] they can become a national party by taking their cues from Howard Dean, George Soros, MoveOn.Org, the Daily Kos, and George McGovern’s appeasement-first philosophy."

Kristol concludes:

There is a political opportunity for the Bush administration if the Democrats reject Lieberman. If he's then unable to win as an independent in November, he would make a fine secretary of defense for the remainder of the Bush years. If his independent candidacy succeeds, it will be a message to Bush that he should forge ahead toward victory in Iraq and elsewhere. Either way, the possibility exists for creating a broader and deeper governing party, with Lieberman Democrats welcomed into the Republican fold, just as Scoop Jackson Democrats became Reaganites in the 1980s. Is it too fanciful to speculate about a 2008 GOP ticket of McCain-Lieberman, or Giuliani-Lieberman, or Romney-Lieberman, or Allen-Lieberman, or Gingrich-Lieberman? Perhaps. But a reinvigorated governing and war-fighting Republican party is surely an achievable goal. And a necessary one.

William Kristol - "Money and Power-Firster"?

I can't say I share William Bennet's or William Kristol's personal enthusiasm for the good Senator and will refrain from indulging in speculation on a presidential ticket. At the same time, I think Mark Shea and Pat Buchanan, in their venting against the dreaded neocons, are being more than a little unfair in their portrayal of Mr. Kristol.

In July 2006, Mark Shea professed his indecisiveness or agnosticism on whether "William Kristol and other neocons are warmongers untethered from reality", on account that "I distrust the reliability of the information I'm getting and I just don't know enough yet to make a judgment that's worth any thing."

Yet, in August 2006, Mark quotes approvingly Pat Buchanan's depiction of William Kristol as one willing to sacrifice core moral principles and "give a pass on everything else" to anybody who "beat[s] the drum for permanent war".

Presumably Kristol is included as well in Shea's description of the current political debate as a struggle between the "God first conservatives and the Money and Power First Conservatives":

And it's quite clear that, for the neocons, the only thing that matters is war and the entire prolife movement and social conservative types can drop dead. The Neocons are All About Power and Realpolitik. Conservatives are morphing into the mirror of their postmodern nihilistic Leftist opponents.

Now, if you listen to the chatter from the anti-war left (antiwar.com, daily kos) and the "paleoconservative" right (The American Conservative), you might recognize William Kristol as a member of the Project for the New American Century, editor of the Weekly Standard, and one of the grand architects of the neoconservative-Zionist conspiracy for perpetual warfare.

Others, however, might recall another side to his political career:

In 1996 he signed his name to The America We Seek: A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern, a joint statement by Catholics, evangelicals and conservatives. In his opposition to human cloning, Kristol has allied himself with Charles Colson, William Bennett, Fr. Neuhaus, James Dobson, George Weigel and other major pro-life religious and conservative voices.

Kristol has demonstrated a personal interest and keen grasp of the issues involved in the recent debate over ESCR (embroyonic stem cell research) and human cloning. In February 12, 2001 he authored an editorial "The Future Is Now" in that infamous neocon propaganda machine otherwise known as The Weekly Standard. Drawing from C.S. Lewis' prophetic The Abolition of Man, Kristol concluded that

"Before this prospect [of genetic human conditioning], before this possibility, every other issue pales not into insignificance, for many other issues are significant, but at least into lesser significance. The challenge of the scientific revolution in genetics and biotechnology, of scientific "progress" loosed from natural, human, or religious moorings, is the challenge we face."

Together with Eric Cohen (editor of the Ethics & Public Policy Center's journal New Atlantis), Kristol co-published The Future is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), providing a substantial introduction to the debate (see contents and excerpts here).

In May 2004, he co-authored another article with Eric Cohen, "The Politics of Bioethics: Playing Defense is Not Enough", The Weekly Standard, Volume 009, Issue 33.

It's because of Kristol's thought on these issues and the overall nature of his writing that I can't help but take umbrage with Pat Buchanan's -- and Mark Shea's -- depiction of him. Frankly, I think the choice of phrase tells us more about a personal animosity toward the elusive neocons and the war in Iraq than it does about Kristol himself.

Lieberman's Pro-Choice Credentials

Shea/Buchanan base their criticism of Lieberman largely on his pro-choice credentials. But, correct me if I'm wrong, Ned Lamont's record on the life issues is no more admirable than Lieberman's -- and if you happen to read some of the more liberal blogs, they're characterizing NARAL's support of Lieberman as a scam, calling into question his loyalty to the pro-abortion cause:

• CT-Sen: Lieberman already dropping; NARAL Kos Feb. 21, 2006
  
• "Lieberman vs. the Day After Pill" Connecticut Bob May 24, 2006
  
• NARAL... R.I.P.: "Repro groups screwing themselves over Lieberman endorsement" Alternet. July 12, 2006.
  
• Incidentally, none other than Michael Schiavo turned out to stump for Ned Lamont (Schiavo speaks on Lamont's behalf Stamford Advocate), criticizing Lieberman's opposition to the removal of Terri's feeding tube (Schiavo: Lieberman Wrong About Terri CBSNews.com July 28, 2006).

There is much one could -- and should -- rightly criticize about Lieberman's record on the life issues, but at the same time we should recognize that his "pro-choice" credentials, as touted by Buchanan, aren't as stolid as he makes them out to be. In the end, given as how Republicans haven't exactly offered any contenders with a fighting chance against the Democrats, we are left with the choice of Lieberman or Lamont in Connecticut. Which leads us to the question:

What's wrong with Ned Lamont?

And as one of Mark's commentators ("Ed the Roman") observed,

Everything for Mark to dislike about Lieberman is there in Lamont, except that he's anti-war.

The problem is that based on comments like "we are strongest when we negotiate with our enemies", he's against the entire war, not just the part in Iraq. Lamont isn't necessarily going to stop with a withdrawal from Iraq. He shows no signs of willingness to do anything about Iran's onward march to nuke Haifa.

Forgive me for the lengthy quotation, but Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has put it best:

Spin it as he may, the central plank in Lamont’s platform is for the U.S. to accept complete and utter defeat at the hands of terrorists and insurgents in Iraq — and, by implication, before long, elsewhere too. It does not fool most of the people to say, as Lamont did, that he will bring the troops “home to a hero’s welcome.” In the real world, that is not what awaits those who suffer defeat — however painful their wounds, however great their courage under fire.

The war we are fighting — in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere — is nasty and bloody and we are not doing very well. But this is the face of war in the 21st century. We either learn to win such battles or we get used to getting whipped; maybe we even start to like getting whipped. Think of John Murtha almost bragging about the retreats he has favored in the past, from Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1993 — as though those retreats did not pave the way to 9/11/01.

What’s worse is that Lamont and his supporters believe America deserves defeat. They don’t say it the way Ward Churchill does but you can read it between the lines. They claim it will not be them or the U.S. that is defeated; only Bush and the hated neocons will be vanquished by the forces formerly led by Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That is akin to a passenger on a ship saying that when the vessels sinks, only the captain and crew will drown.

So this is a bad day for America, too. There was a time when Americans united against their enemies. But our enemies in this war have been allowed to divide us. Bush may deserve some of the blame for that. But disunity has been the goal of the Lamont/Sharpton/Jackson/Murtha/Soros/Sheehan/Moore/Kos wing of the Democratic party., the wing that triumphed last night in Connecticut.

In the end, we are faced with the question: Is it possible for Kristol to appeal for possible cooperation and common ground between "Lieberman Democrats" and Republicans on the issue of national security without sacrificing pro-life principles?

• See also I. Shawn McElhinney's "Miscellaneous Musings on Joe Lieberman, His Withdrawal From the Democratic Senate Primary, and Possible Wider 2006 Election Ramifications" [audioblog, .mp3 format].
• The Defeatist Party in Full Bloom Oswald Sobrino Catholic Analysis August 9, 2006.
• Symposium: Lieberman's Loss Bill Bennett, Charles Kesler, Larry Sabato more make sense of Connecticut. National Review Online (NRO) August 9, 2006.
• This discussion brought to my mind Jody Bottum's provocative article on The New Fusionism First Things 154 (June/July 2005): 32-26:

  If only as a courtesy to serious figures from the papal biographer George Weigel to the Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, we need to consider the possibility that pure political calculation isn’t the only cause for the recent fusion of social conservatives and neoconservatives.

The Defeatist Party in Full Bloom

The defeat of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary further confirms that the contemporary Democratic Party is the party of defeatism that cannot be trusted to fight the war against Islamist fanatics. Of course, some Democrats will try to paint the Lieberman defeat as a bad sign for President Bush because "the voters" rejected Lieberman due to his support of the Iraq war. That predictable spin effort by the Democrats is a grand deception. The "voters" involved here are the liberal Democrats that dominate Democratic primaries in most, if not all, states. Liberal Democrats rejecting Lieberman because of his support of the Iraq war is a non-story. In fact, the real election comes in November when Lieberman runs as an independent. Some predict that Lieberman will win as an independent. Bottom-line: the Democratic Party is the defeatist party that rejects any attempt to win in Iraq and drives out anyone who favors victory in Iraq.

Interestingly, former President Clinton actually campaigned for Lieberman. Senator Hillary Clinton gave Lieberman tepid support. Whom will the Clintons support in the general election: the official Democratic candidate or independent candidate Lieberman? The Clintons live for power, not principle. So they will likely seek to make a calculation on how to minimize the number of Democrats they displease balanced with an urgent concern to appear strong on national security issues. The Clinton calculation will be a sham based on expediency and not on principle or conviction, a sham focused on getting the wife elected President in 2008. If she wins in 2008, the former President can then return to White House policy-making. He will likely seek the role of a special Middle East negotiator who will try to rehabilitate himself in political history by seeing if, this time around, he can finally win the Nobel Peace Prize denied to him when he failed to broker a Middle East peace accord during his administration. Let's see how many, if any, are fooled by the sham Clinton balancing act that will unfold this fall in Connecticut and beyond.

What is of urgent peril to the republic is that one of our major parties is the defeatist party, the best ally that our terrorist enemies have. The Democratic Party is the modern fifth column that our enemies can count on to undermine and sap with constant harping criticism the will to win the war on Islamist imperialism. This trajectory began with the 1972 campaign of George McGovern: that year the Democratic Party went anti-American. Thirty-four years later the trend continues in full force, except that now the enemy is not limited to the small country of Vietnam but is a worldwide Islamist assault that aims to attack both here at home and overseas.

Update: Go to RealClearPolitics.com where John McIntyre gives great political analysis about the Lieberman fiasco for the Democrats. McIntyre hits the nail on the head.

New York Catholic Conference issues Voter Guide

Catholics will get a dose of election-year issues this fall as New York's priests weigh in on the statewide contests.
For the first time since the late 1980s, the Catholic Conference of New York State is putting together a voters guide to lay out where candidates for all statewide offices and the Legislature stand on 10 or 12 issues important to the church. The information will be distributed to parishes across the state, and priests will be encouraged to spread the word.

So some Sunday morning, expect to be reminded that Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic front-runner for governor, supports gay marriage and legalized abortion, while John Faso, his Republican and Catholic opponent, opposes both. . . . READ MORE

Politics from the pulpit New York Daily News Originally published on July 11, 2006.

Democrats looking for “Catholic Outreach” coordinator

Via the NCR:

A Catholic outreach director will be hired by the Democratic National Committee as early as this month, rounding out an inside-the-beltway religious organizing team at the party’s Capitol Hill headquarters that includes staffers devoted to promoting the party’s message to Muslims, African-American churches, mainline Protestants and Jews.

It’s the latest indication, say some observers, that Democrats have learned a key lesson of John Kerry’s failed 2004 presidential campaign. “I’m very encouraged that the Democratic Party seems more open and amendable to being inclusive and welcoming to pro-life Democrats like me,” said Raymond Flynn, former mayor of Boston and Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the Vatican. “They’ve been far more receptive this year than anytime I can recall.”

“The last cycle was a wake-up call,” said Leslie Brown, coordinator of the national committee’s “faith in action” effort. “When you lose [the Catholic vote] with a Catholic candidate then you’ve got to go back” and address the problem, she said.

---

It’s one thing, say Democratic strategists, to reach out to Catholics in the pews, quite another to placate vocal members of the hierarchy and conservative Catholic opinion-shapers who used their pulpits in 2004 to challenge Kerry and other pro-choice Catholic office seekers. Party officials are still spooked by Kerry’s run-ins with high-profile bishops and by attacks from the conservative Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights against two operatives hired during the campaign.

In early August 2004, the Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson was forced out of her post as the national committee’s director of religious outreach after the League revealed she had joined 31 other religious leaders in filing a friend of the court brief in support of removing “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Previously, the Kerry campaign silenced religious outreach coordinator Mara Vanderslice after the Catholic League issued news releases that labeled her soft on anti-Catholicism because she had engaged in civil disobedience with, among others, the AIDS activist organization, Act-UP.

The tangling continues.

Speaking at the International Congress on Churches in Mexico City in November 2005, San Antonio Archbishop Jose Gomez said, “This debate stopped being an abstraction when in the last presidential election one of the candidates was a Catholic who calls himself devout and who has, however, defended the most radical positions in favor of abortion.” Continued Gomez, “Catholic cannot say that he is Catholic, and at the same time disagree with the doctrine of the church in essential matters. In order to be a Catholic, we need to believe like a Catholic, to act like a Catholic and to speak like a Catholic.”

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The Democrats’ delicate dance with the hierarchy is evident in the hiring of the national committee’s Catholic outreach coordinator.

“We need someone who will not alienate the institutional church,” said a Democrat familiar with the hiring process. “Someone with credibility who understands how to organize within the church and understands the politics of [the church] and is able to navigate through that while also understanding the complexity of the issues in the Democratic Party.”

Meanwhile, with decidedly Democratic roots but a nonpartisan mission, the newly-formed “Catholic Alliance for the Common Good” hopes to take the message promoted by the American bishops in their 2003 statement on “Faithful Citizenship” to a broader audience. That statement, which reiterated Catholic social justice teaching in light of a range of contemporary issues, was generally welcomed by Democrats. It was, however, supplanted in many dioceses by a pamphlet distributed by the conservative group “Catholic Answers” which emphasized the “nonnegotiable issues,” foremost among them abortion, on which Catholic voters should base their votes.

The Democrats can hire a "Catholic Outreach" coordinator or one for every state for that matter, but until they change their support for abortion on demand and expanded funding for ESCR, start defending traditional marriage, and forcefully oppose human cloning and efforts to expand euthansia it will make little difference.

The Republicans are not perfect. Far from it actually. But for now they are with us on more of these issues than the Democrats. We should try to remember that.

Maryland U.S. Senate Race

I've written before about it: this election year the Republicans are putting forth prominent black candidates in a long-term bid to begin to end Democrat dominance of the black vote. To paraphrase Winston Churchill loosely, this may not be the end of the Democrat lock on the black vote; but it may be the beginning of the end. In both Ohio and Pennsylvania, the Republican candidates for governor are black. This is not tokenism. These are two important and prized electoral states in the national presidential races. Just as in the post of Secretary of State in D.C., which is, of course, held by another African-American, the Republicans are demonstrating that they are serious about serious and important black officeholders.

According to this Robert Novak column at realclearpolitics.com, the race to watch is the Maryland U.S. Senate race in which African-American Lieutenant Governor Steele is the Republican candidate (here is the link). And for Catholics, the good news is that Steele is pro-life. So is Blackwell in Ohio. The history of black party loyalty began with a decades long attachment to the Republican Party of Lincoln in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Democratic Party of that era was the party of slavery, the Confederacy, and Southern racism. With FDR's New Deal, blacks transferred their political loyalty to the Democratic Party for the first time because of the social programs that meant so much to the poorest of the poor. Today, the Party of Lincoln is making a new bid for black voters to come back home. It's a bid based on supporting school vouchers that will have a revolutionary and favorable impact on black inner city students, on demonstrating the reality of black empowerment and the end of racist attitudes by nominating black candidates to prominent appointed and elected positions, and by appealing to the social conservatism of many religious African-Americans whether on the issue of abortion or "gay marriage." It's a formula that's working because it matches the reality and aspirations of many African-Americans.

In this regard, the reelection of Mayor Ray Nagin in New Orleans has been a tremendous (but little noticed) setback to the political plans of Howard Dean. The plan was to make Katrina the Democrat version of 9/11, even with New Orleans as a potential site for the 2008 Democrat National Convention, just as New York was the site of the 2004 Republican National Convention. But Mayor Nagin, although a Democrat, spoke loud and clear after his reelection by thanking President Bush for keeping his promises to aid the New Orleans recovery. Howard Dean's man will not be the host for any Democrat National Convention in New Orleans. Howard Dean's man (liberal Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu) lost the race even with a gigantic fundraising advantage over Nagin and the backing of the liberal Democrat establishment in Louisiana and beyond. The Democrat Katrina card with black voters lost a lot of its power with Nagin back in office emphatically praising Bush's commitment to recovery.

Like Hispanics, African-Americans voters must be in play for both major parties in order to have any real influence in American politics. More Republican black voters will do that. More Republican black voters will also be a major roadblock to the Culture of Death of abortion and to the analogous Death-of-Opportunity Culture found in dead end inner city public school systems which Democrats irrationally seek to preserve by resisting school vouchers.

Michigan's Pro-Abort Granholm in Political Trouble

Here in Michigan we have been beset with a pro-abortion "Catholic" governor, Jennifer Granholm, for the last four years. Not only is she a terrible scandal because of her enthusiastic support of abortion, she is also a just plain bad governor on all other counts. Here is a link from realclearpolitics.com that shows the extent of her current political troubles. Let's be bold enough to pray for her defeat in this year's election. The choice is clear.

Explaining the New Orleans Election

Late Saturday night, I was ahead of virtually all of the media outlets in New Orleans in calling the election for the incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin, the one of post-Katrina and "chocolate city" notoriety. The behavior of the New Orleans media reminded me of how the TV networks had to pull back from announcing the Gore victory they so yearned for in 2000. It reminded me how on the day of the 2004 presidential election the media was all agog over inaccurate exit polls indicating a Kerry victory. I called the election for Nagin and did so quite happily and thankfully. It's worth explaining to non-Louisianians because the Nagin victory will likely be in most national headlines on Monday. The first reaction of many nationally will be that New Orleanians made a mistake by re-electing a mayor given to outrageous comments that embarrass the city. That first but understandable reaction would be wrong. Give me your patience, and let me explain why.

Nagin was first elected mayor four years ago as a pro-business, reform candidate. Although a Democrat in a heavily Democratic city, Nagin was indeed the reform candidate who promised to get rid of the cronyism, patronage, and corruption that was a decades-old tradition and even source of perverse roguish pride in New Orleans city hall. The cronyism was just the way business was done, Louisiana and New Orleans style. Nagin ended that perverse tradition well before Katrina hit. Not a few of the rogues were shown the exit door at New Orleans city hall before Katrina.

Then Katrina hit, and you know the rest. Nagin was and is a political maverick who doesn't follow anyone's or any party's agenda, although he is a nominal Democrat by necessity. In my view, when Katrina hit, the liberal Democrat establishment--consisting locally of inept Governor Kathleen Blanco and the Landrieu family, and nationally of the Democrat National Committee--could see that the dispersal of so many black voters was a direct political threat to the reelection of Democrats statewide, such as Gov. Blanco and U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. And so, in my opinion, the push was on to take control, in one way or another, of the city and the reconstruction effort from the hands of maverick, loose cannon Nagin and put it in the hands of a reliable establishment party-line Democrat. Nagin had earned the distrust of the Democrats when he had previously endorsed a Republican for governor in a previous election. That's not something a Democratic African-American mayor usually does.

What better choice then than the brother of Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu herself: Mitch Landrieu. And so the national and state Democrats coalesced around the Senator's brother. By the way, the Landrieu family is referred to by the media as Louisiana's equivalent of the Kennedys. Senator Mary Landrieu sure makes them similar to the Kennedys in a way that I and many of my readers will find highly distasteful: she is a pro-abortion Catholic (Senator Mary Landrieu has a 43% pro-abortion NARAL rating; see link). In fact, not too long ago, the Archbishop of New Orleans made it a point to boycott the granting of an honorary degree to the Landrieu family as a whole by the local, of course liberal, Jesuit university because of this Kennedyesque resemblance on the abortion issue. Similarly, a prior Archbishop of New Orleans had expressed the view that no Catholic should vote for Mary Landrieu when she first ran for the Senate due to her views on abortion.

With millions raised and, according to one local political analyst, with Democrat National Committee advice, Mitch Landrieu ran a textbook professional campaign that culminated with a grand outdoor reception, New Orleans-style, with a brass band to boot, for the political and economic elites of the city the day before the election (see WWL.com radio interview on May 5, 2006, with Shreveport political analyst Elliot Stonecipher on DNC involvement at this audio link: http://wwl.com/goout.asp?u=ftp://news.entercom.com/new%20orleans/tommy-elliot%20stonecipher.mp3). They came, to borrow a phrase from Nagin, to "kiss the ring." The Landrieu political dynasty was set to take over the second most powerful political office (after the governorship) in Louisiana. The brother would watch out for his sister's political fortunes when she ran again for the U.S. Senate in 2008. He would look out for whoever might be the Democratic candidate for governor in the near future, with the real possibility in mind that he himself might be that gubernatorial candidate. All was set. The plan was well-funded, planned, and rolled-out like the D-Day invasion.

But to the shock, awe, and dismay of the political pundits and powers of Louisiana, unlike D-Day, the plan died on the beaches. Mr. Nagin won with very little money. In fact, one national newspaper had earlier referred to the low-key Nagin campaign as "mysterious" in its conventional invisibility. Another source has noted that Nagin was at a six to one disadvantage in fundraising in the runoff. Whatever the exact proportion, it is clear that Landrieu had an immense money advantage over Nagin.

As one prominent local talk radio station began its election night coverage, its two seasoned political analysts predicted an undoubted Landrieu victory before the first votes were even reported. I recall one of the political "experts" saying that he and others would be "stunned" if Nagin won reelection. There are a lot of stunned important people in New Orleans today. By later that evening, at least one of the radio experts was fumbling for a way to climb out of the hole they had dug themselves into because they were so out of touch with the people of New Orleans.

Why did Nagin win? It appears that he got about 80% of the black vote. Liberal Landrieu appears to have even lost some of the black vote he had gained in the earlier primary campaign. (The final election was technically a "run-off" between the two survivors of the primary election, Nagin and Mitch Landrieu.) Black voters felt it was important to keep a cherished symbol of their political empowerment and not trade it in for a white liberal.

But, most crucially in my opinion, was that Nagin's reelection would have been absolutely impossible without the support of many conservative, Republican white voters. In fact, I participated regularly in a web forum during the campaign in which many aspects of the campaign were debated. I made it a point to explain why Nagin should be reelected. On that web forum, I called the election for Nagin after another forum participant (much more astute than the radio experts) posted the results from some white precincts: Nagin was getting 20% or more of the white vote!

In the primary election that preceded the final runoff between Nagin and Mitch Landrieu, Nagin had received only about 6% of the white vote. Conservative, Republican whites swung to Nagin and handed him the election.

Why? A prominent white Republican candidate, Rob Couhig, who had lost in the primary election (and thus did not make the runoff election) showed great courage and daring by crossing the traditional color line and endorsing Nagin on the airwaves. A group of Republican activists, the Greater New Orleans Republicans, also endorsed and campaigned actively for Nagin. Why? Because Nagin was pro-business and stood out in New Orleans political history for his honesty. And, of course, no conservative wanted to see another liberal Landrieu in power. As one black political analyst put it, Nagin won with a "shotgun marriage" coalition of white conservatives and black voters. That's the nightmare of Howard Dean and the Democrat National Committee. I am sure they are also stunned today.

Personally, I could see how the Mitch Landrieu candidacy would further enhance the political fortunes of a very prominent pro-abortion Catholic Senator. So I did whatever I could, including praying, to enhance Nagin's chances in my own very small way. That's why I argued regularly for Nagin in that New Orleans web forum. There was a great political miracle Saturday night in New Orleans. Some of us prayed for it.

In short, the closest thing to the Republican conservative candidate won the mayor's election in New Orleans. The "dynasty" that is the Louisiana equivalent to the Kennedys was defeated. White conservatives crossed the color line: philosophy overcame any lingering racial prejudices. So I was quite happy to see Mayor Nagin go out of his way to thank President Bush for keeping his promises to aid New Orleans. That public and emphatic thanks must have caused heartburn among the D.C. bigshots of the Democrat National Committee who are planning to use Katrina against President Bush in coming elections. President Bush has an ally in Mayor Nagin who will not follow the playbook of Howard Dean. That's a mighty good thing. Now you know the rest of the story that few in the national media will take the time to tell you.

Update: See today's Drudge Report on the involvement of Howard Dean and the Democrat National Committee in the failed effort to topple Nagin. Here is the link. The DNC denies the report. But see the above audio link from WWL radio with Shreveport political analyst Elliot Stonecipher that corroborates the main lines of the Drudge reporting about the DNC. Judge for yourself. Later Update: The Drudge Report is apparently backing away from its claim about the DNC.

GOP Puts Up Major Black Candidates

This election year the GOP is putting its money and muscle behind black candidates for important posts (see USA Today story from May 10th, "Black GOP Candidates Could Signal Shift in Allegiance," at this link). In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Republican candidates for governor are black. In Maryland, the Republican candidate for an open U.S. Senate seat is black. It appears likely that in all of these major elections the opponent of the black Republican candidate will be a white Democrat. So much for the rainbow coalition of the Democratic Party. I guess the rainbow just can't compete with the dictates and ambitions of white Democratic liberal politicians seeking to move up the political ladder.

In a different context, we see the same sort of thing currently in New Orleans where the Democratic National Committee, according to one credible independent political analyst, is going all out to crown liberal white Democrat Mitch Landrieu as the new mayor to replace, of all things, a black Democratic incumbent (the election is on May 20th). Although incumbent black New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is a Democrat, he is conservative and pro-business compared to liberal Landrieu who is just a cog in the liberal Democratic political machine run by Howard Dean. The national Democrats have targeted Nagin, who is a maverick with conservative leanings--he dared to endorse a few years ago the Republican candidate for governor in Louisiana and has alienated the political cronies of a prior Democratic mayoral administration engulfed in scandal and federal investigations--because they need reliably liberal Landrieu to rebuild the machine's base of docile, poverty-stricken minority voters in New Orleans. That base is crucial to the political future of Landrieu's sister, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, whose own liberal credentials are unquestioned and to her brother's own ambitions to become governor. Liberal Democrats can't win statewide in Louisiana without a big turnout of black voters in the terrible, crime-infested neighborhoods of New Orleans.

In fact, in keeping with the theme of Republicans backing black candidates, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was recently endorsed by the strongest Republican candidate who did not make the runoff election. So the Republicans have crossed the color line. The Democrats seem to have put the careers of white liberals first. It looks like we are returning to the Party of Lincoln fast, while the Democrats remain stuck in the same old model of liberal manipulation of poor, fearful voters. With the rejuvenated Party of Lincoln, those voters will get an alternative that is long overdue. That is good news for Catholic and other Christian voters who are pro-life and who favor school vouchers, two ideas that will be of immeasurable benefit to African-Americans who are decimated both by abortion and by terrible public school systems. Abortion and the trap of horrible inner city public school systems are two awful realities that have the fingerprints of liberal Democrats all over them.

Election Perseverance

Fr Pavone, of Priests for Life, on the importance of the 2006 elections for the Culture of Life. Read it here.