Republican White House maybes court evangelicals toward 2016

Associated Press ^ | Jan 25, 2015 12:05 PM EST | Bill Barrow

[Olog-hai]

Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have gotten much of the attention in these early days of the Republican race for president, but as they court the party’s elite donors in private phone calls and meetings, a group of likely candidates to their right are just as eagerly chasing support among Christian evangelicals and social conservatives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal led a prayer rally that filled the basketball arena at Louisiana State University on Saturday. Called “The Response,” organizers billed the event as a national call to pray “for a nation that has not honored God in our success or humbly called on him in our struggles.”

Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson spoke and attended services this weekend at Houston’s Second Baptist Church as part of the mammoth congregation’s “If My People” conference, pitched as an effort to “restore the soul of America.”

Carson also appeared Saturday, along with several other possible candidates that included Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, before a crowd of several hundred devoted social conservatives in Iowa, where GOP Rep. Steve King hosted his Freedom Summit. Romney and Bush did not attend. …

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Sounds more like “pandering” to evangelicals...all to be forgotten once they win the election.
Color me “cynical” to this whole political genre.
Freegards
LEX

[grumpygresh]

They would fit in well with the Joel Osteen crowd.

[Republican Wildcat]

Randomly skimming through channels last night I came across Bobby Jindal speaking at that event - he was giving his personal testimony as how he became a Christian.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of social conservatives like myself who aren’t primarily interested in marginal tax rates or a host of other issues. We are social conservatives. We have been used and abused for too long. Get back with us when you support our values. Otherwise, you might as well leave us alone. You might not like it, but that’s the bottom line. If you have no interest in our most important values, we have no interest in voting for you.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... Get back with us when you support our values."

Then you might want to articulate those values so the rest of us (and them) can know what they are. I'm never quite certain what they are, considering the nature of vigorous debate between what appears to me to be like-minded 'evangelicals'.

If you're talking about ending a lot of the slimy things we see with the coarsening of American culture these days, I'm all on board. We share those values.

If you're talking about codifying Biblical-based teachings into American law, we may have a significant problem.

If you're demanding that the GOP accept values in the national platform that the universe is only 6000 years old and that much of science is Satanic fraud meant to confuse mankind, then you might want to find another political party that supports those values.

[GenXteacher]

Amen. An open sewer is still an open sewer, even if it has a balanced checkbook.

[righttackle44]

I thought jeb was ironman--thought he didn't need us. (Knead us.) 'Scuse me while I look for a candidate who is more like me: born-again, member of a minority race, who thinks illegal aliens are aliens who are in this country illegally, wants to cut the financial pipeline, who voted for Reagan, thinks Belichick and Brady had to know something, and loves America.

[Olog-hai]

Well, he didn’t show up, did he?