Latest news on the campaign front:
At the Democratic debate late last week, finally, Hillary showed some of her weaknesses.
Namely, Drivers Licenses for illegal immigrants. When asked she first said she was for it, then waffled and went back on that and said she wasn't sure and then accused the moderator and the other Democrats of "picking on her" and using "gotcha" questions.
Let me remind you all again. If this person is elected president, you will have at least one Supreme Court justice nominated by her. This means if you are against abortion, you will NEVER EVER see abortion ended. She will nominate a justice who is pro-abortion and that one justice will be able to swing the court to that side.
So, since it looks like Romney, Thompson, McCain and Huckabee are starting to fall behind Giuliani, we will probably have a moderate conservative who is not necessarily "pro-abortion" but sort of non commital on it.
You saw my blog entry here a week or more ago tell you about this problem, now last night on national news shows, it was pointed out that in a recent poll, if Giuliani went against Clinton in a general election today, Giuliani wins by about 1%. If a third party Christian Conservative person were in the race, Clinton would win the election by over 15%!! If James Dobson goes forward with this just to placate he and his so called followers, or those who just feel that they have to promote "Our guy", that will be CRIMINAL as far as I am concerned. We CANNOT elect Hillary Clinton as president. Do you really want the Clintons back in power?
People, you may have to compromise on one or two issues for the greater good. If we don't stand behind the Republican nominee, we will advance the cause of abortion, homosexuality, and many many other anti-Christian ideals. You really need to think and pray about this decision if it comes up.
I will try to keep you all up to date with the latest from this election.
6 comments:
Bill,
Are you really asking me to vote for a baby killer and telling me I am a criminal for refusing to do so?
Tell me who my pro-life candidates are?
Don't we have like a year? Are you getting on your soap box a little early?
1 - Who is the "baby killer"? If Giuliani wins the nomination, he has been non-committal on the abortion issue. I am not a Giuliani fan, but he will not advance abortion rights nor will he work to take them away. He will however, nominate a conservative to the Supreme Court. So I am not asking you to vote for a "baby killer" I am asking you not to put one into the Oval Office.
2 - Thompson, Huckabee, Romney are all pro-life. Of these, I believe Thompson most represents Christian ideals and has a chance at the nomination. Huckabee doesn't stand a chance Nationally.
3 - No we don't have a year, the primary election is in less than 8 weeks in some states and about 6 months until Oregon although Oregon is looking to move up the Primary election date.
What I am trying to say is look at the candidates, vote in the primary for the one you feel is best, then when the general election comes, ALL Republicans have to stand united behind OUR candidate if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. If it is Giuliani, we might have to hold our noses, as well as Romney as I can't imagine voting for a Mormon. The issue at hand is:
Are you thinking this whole scenario through? Supreme Court decides the abortion issue. President nominates Supreme Court justices.
Again I ask, do you really want another 4-8 years of the Clintons?
Okay, I'm not sure who you are preaching too. Who of your 5 or 6 avid readers are Clinton fans? Or are you thinking people may happen onto your blog like they did via the whole creation debate issue from a few months ago?
YESSSSS I am hoping!!!
I put meta tags on my blog and hope that the readership goes up for sure.
My hit counter has gone up a ton since I did that too, so that means there are a lot of you lurkers out there not speaking up!!
My goal is to make it nationally with the blog. Absolutely!
Bill, you have guessed right there are some who would rather not jump into this.
I am one.
Why are you bashing Hillary so badly?
I don't think you know about her faith.
Please read this story:
Could Hillary win the religious vote?
Despite her genuine Methodist upbringing and honest-to-God faith credentials, the skepticism toward her among believers is deep and enduring. Her best hope among values voters: That they stay home on Election Day.
By Paul Kengor
"I'm sorry, I know it sounds judgmental, but I just can't believe she's a Christian, and I think all her talk of faith is pure politics."
That was talk-radio host Robert Mangino from Youngstown, Ohio, and his response was a common one among conservatives who recently interviewed me about the faith of Hillary Clinton.
I responded: "Well, she has gone to church regularly since childhood, and surely wasn't playing politics when she was baptized as an infant and going to Vacation Bible School."
I continued my case: "You know, she has openly professed the basic fundamentals of the Christian faith — from belief in the resurrection to the Trinity — prays, reads the Bible, studies the Methodist Church's Book of Discipline, frequently attends and has even led Bible studies."
My interviewer was unconvinced. Our conversation reminded me of an assessment by the late Jerry Falwell at the September 2006 "Values Voters Summit:" "I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate (in 2008). Because nothing will energize my (constituency) like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't."
(Illustration by Keith Simmons, USA TODAY)
Can the Democratic Party win the religious vote in 2008? Can it do what Al Gore and John Kerry failed to do when churchgoing "values voters" twice went overwhelmingly for George W. Bush, providing him precious millions of votes?
This question applies primarily to the Democratic nominee, who is likely to be Hillary Clinton, and who not coincidentally has a strategy to appeal to precisely these voters in the hope of securing a sizable enough sliver to make a decisive difference in 2008.
Hillary forecast her intentions only three days after the November 2004 election during a speech at Tufts University, where she confidently asserted that she and her fellow Democrats should not have ceded the evangelical vote to George W. Bush. She and they can play on that field, she insisted.
Or can they? Can she? That's the central faith question for 2008, and the answer thus far seems to be no. Religious conservatives remain highly skeptical of Hillary Clinton, despite her long, generally frustrated, attempt to change hearts and minds.
Tied to her past
It began way back in Arkansas, where Bible Belt Democrats and Republicans alike were suspicious of Hillary as a "godless liberal" up North. To combat the image, Hillary traveled the state, giving a speech titled, "Why I am a Methodist." While the speech was a genuine recounting of her background and beliefs, it clearly had political as much as spiritual motivation.
This cynicism dogged Hillary all the way to the White House, with plenty of intensity, but not always with a firm, factual base. For instance, Bob Woodward reported that when Hillary was writing her book, It Takes a Village, her then-adviser Jean Houston, a co-director of the Foundation of Mind Research, suggested that an imaginary conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt, one of Hillary's role models, might help her focus. Critics quickly interpreted this as a seance, but Houston never claimed any such thing. Nevertheless, the interpretations stuck.
Two years later, the accusations worsened as a result of the Monica Lewinsky incident. This elephant in the bedroom pops up in every discussion on the faith of either Clinton.
Inevitably, someone recalls the infamous moment when Bill, after strolling out of church with a Bible tucked under his arm on Easter Sunday, headed back to the Oval Office for a sordid moment with Monica.
To a degree, the scandal generated sympathy for Hillary, as many Americans accepted her assertion that Bill's admission brought her to deep prayer — her cross to bear.
On the other hand, many judged her guilty by association. After all, she had initially blamed the allegations on a "vast right-wing conspiracy," and she knew her husband's history. Her critics assumed that she held the marriage together to succor political aspirations.
Ultimately, by the end of the Clinton presidency, a 2000 poll by the Wall Street Journal/NBC News found that only 12% of the public described Hillary as "extremely/very religious;" of all the leading political figures polled, only her husband scored lower.
But that's in the past, right? Not at all. Hillary Clinton has been unable to budge these numbers as an elected senator looking toward a presidency of her own.
Two major hurdles
Today, there are two faith-related matters that religious conservatives find most troubling with Hillary: her church politicking is one, but first and foremost is her perceived stridency on the abortion issue.
The church politicking is a brazen, undeniable use of her faith for political benefit. Remarkably, she campaigned in 27 New York churches in the two months before the November 2000 vote, including six on Election Day morning alone.
But while values voters find her church politicking distasteful, they find her position on abortion — she may be the most uncompromising pro-choicer in the entire Congress — intolerable.
This is an enormous obstacle for her, and she knows it, as do leading religious voices in her own party.
"I think our party's leaders — some of them — are overemphasizing the abortion issue," said Jimmy Carter in November 2005. "I've never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion."
Here again, the sum total of these factors is evident in another major poll, this time done in just the last few weeks by the Pew Research Center. That poll found that Hillary had gained no ground in the eye of the public. She once again was judged next to last in terms of religiousness, except for ... Rudy Giuliani.
And that's where this faith question gets most interesting.
A group of leading conservative Christians is threatening to bolt to a third party if the pro-choice Giuliani gets the Republican nomination, and they are not alone. The entrance of Rudy suddenly makes the predictable much less so.
However, even if these voters don't go to Rudy in 2008, they will not flee to Hillary — a trade-off that might be just fine with her.
If values voters stay home on election day — or go to a third party — then they will indeed do precisely what Hillary Clinton has hoped all along: Win her the White House.
Paul Kengor, author of spiritual biographies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, recently published God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life. He is a professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa.
Well this just in: Pat Robertson officially endorsed Rudy Giuliani as the Republican choice for 2008.
I am really surprised at this.
He is doing this a bit early.
I am finding this a bit hypocritical on Pat's part.
I have never been a huge Pat Robertson fan but this one is really weird. Maybe he is predicting the end of the world again.
As to you anonymous.
That article you quote from speaks volumes about Hillary and answers your own question.
A Christian? As only God knows the heart, I won't question that but I WILL be a bit concerned with her stand on that.
Hmm, it's only just now heating up.
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