[DNC] Say Pence Press Conference Complicates Things

In response to Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s press conference today, please see the below statement from Holly Shulman, National Press Secretary for the Democratic National Committee:

“Nothing Gov. Pence said today changes the fact he advocated for and signed into law a bill that allows Indiana business to discriminate against the LGBT community under the guise of religious freedom. Attacking the media is no excuse for the fact that Pence was warned this legislation would hurt Indiana’s economy and its image weeks before Pence even signed it into law. The business community is not lining up against RFRA because of the media backlash, they’re lining up against RFRA because of what it is designed to do: discriminate against LGBT individuals.

“Furthermore, today’s press conference only complicates things for nearly every potential 2016 GOP candidate. Yesterday, nearly all of his colleagues in the Republican race for the presidency sided with Pence and defended this discriminatory law. Today, Pence is saying he wants to “fix” the law – even though he refuses to say exactly what the fix is and has still made clear that he doesn’t plan to do anything to protect LGBT Americans from discrimination. Pence, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, and every potential 2016 GOP candidate still have one simple question to answer: should businesses be allowed to discriminate against the LGBT community? I think we already know their answer.”

Why does Scott Walker keep winning elections while advancing conservative policies? Because he doesn't play by the MSM rules. He will not be sidelined and defined by their gotcha questions -- won't hand them something to club him with.

Of course if you go to the comment section of a WKOW piece about this Pence story, the Leftists know Walker's sidestepping their trap - again - and it has these rabid activists spitting in anger.

The Left loves it when they can pit their opposition against each other by making them comment on each other.

The Washington Post played ‘gotcha’ with Scott Walker (and lost)".... Of everything they had opportunity to ask, they chose to ask Walker whether he thought Obama was a Christian. ...Walker refused to give them the answer they wanted....... And so our national press falls yet another rung in their slow, sad, descent into irrelevance. There is a silver lining though: maddening as the interview was to read, it’s abundantly clear Scott Walker will not be presshandled."

Making The News: Scott Walker And The Media"...The media isn’t interested in covering the news; they’re out to make it. Potential Republican candidates need to recognize that either have a “that’s a bullshit question”-esque answer chambered for when they come, or simply ignore them altogether.

Reporters are, at the heart of it, lazy. They get an easy narrative in their heads and try to fit the news into it. If you don’t play along, they will be forced to cover something else, like what a candidate said that matters."....

Evangelicals Looking for Walker to “Do Nothing” in 2016 Election "When speaking to religious audiences, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker likes to remind people that he goes to church and knows his Bible. These reminders frequently come as Walker seeks to distinguish himself from political opponents in Wisconsin—the ones, he claims, who’ve sent his family death threats and harassed his kids on Facebook; the “literally thousands of protesters outside our family home” in Wauwatosa. Some of these protesters have, according to Walker, driven past the house and given him the finger as he and his family raked leaves on a Sunday afternoon after church and before the Packers game.

Speaking in 2012 to a teleconference with activists from Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Walker said his faith has enabled him to rise above the “vitriol, and the constant, ongoing hatred” during the recall election he faced in the wake of his anti-union legislation, which has crippled the state’s once-iconic labor movement. Along with the unmistakable contrast of his church-going family with the profane and progressive activists, Walker cited two Bible verses. He didn’t recite them, but for anyone who knows their Bible—as Walker, the son of a Baptist pastor, does—the meaning was clear. The verses that helped him withstand the hatred were Romans 16:20 (“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you”) and Isaiah 54:17 (“no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.”)

Should he run for president, Walker may very well turn out to be the 2016 cycle’s evangelical favorite—not because he ticks off a laundry list of culture war talking points, pledges fealty to a “Christian nation,” or because he’s made a show of praying publicly to curry political favor. Although by no means universal, some conservative evangelicals—those who eschew the fever swamps of talk radio, yet share the same political stances of the religious right—are weary of the old style of campaigning. They’re turned off by the culture war red meat, the dutiful but insincere orations of piety.

Emphasizing that ours is a “Christian nation” and pushing “hot button issues” as a style of campaigning has been detrimental to evangelicals, said Mary Jo Sharp, who teaches apologetics at Houston Baptist University and analyzes political campaigns as part of a class she teaches there. “It’s very difficult to hear” that kind of rhetoric, she said. “Christians are not supposed to be the dividers.”

Over the course of his political career in Wisconsin, Walker “hasn’t presented as any kind of culture warrior,” said Hunter Baker, Associate Professor of Political Science at Union University, a Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tennessee. “One of the worst things that ever happened with conservative Christians,” said Baker, was that they “give in to a tribal impulse,” by questioning “are we getting the respect we perceive we once had, are we losing ground, we need to mobilize, we need to increase our force.” That, he added, “is a losing strategy. It gives people the sense you’re working from resentment.”........................

Today, Pence showed us why he is not ready for primetime or the Presidency (let’s ignore what some pundits tell us ).

Someone like Newt Gingrich would probably ask a few of those who were helped by RFRA laws and invite them to come to the podium with him asking them to explain why the law was necessary for them.

Here is a list of folks Pence could have invited to come to the press conference with him:

http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/30/meet-10-americans-helped-by-religious-freedom-bills-like-indianas/

Several of them Minorities...

Fight PR with PR man.

Pence doesn’t know how to do it.

uh oh. i like pence (he is on my short list) but if this “fix” does anything to force Christians owning a private business back into doing forced transactions against their moral values or to go out of business to avoid going against their those values, then it is both wrong morally (i.e., it amounts to slavery) and is patently unconstitutional (violates the 1st amendment) as well. pence should have left well enough alone.

you just can’t take a stand for Jesus and the bretheren and then turn around and go back. it’s too late at that point. you’re basically finished but for the grace of God, because God will deal with you at that point. i hope pence’s actions don’t amount to “putting his hand to the plow” and then taking it off.

boy. politics can be a mine field for a believer who is not solid in the Faith.

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