Did you say, SATAN?????
Posted on 06/24/2006 8:34:58 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Earlier this week, Republican John Jacob said he thought Ol' Scratch himself -- Satan -- was working against his campaign to unseat incumbent Rep. Chris Cannon in Utah's Third Congressional District.
On Friday, however, Jacob tried to put some distance between himself and the devil.
"What I was trying to say, and obviously didn't do it very well, is that over the last eight months I've had more adversity in my life than I've had in the last 10 years," Jacob said of comments made to the editorial board of The Salt Lake Tribune and subsequently published in Friday editions.
On Thursday, Jacob told the Tribune: "There's another force that wants to keep us from going to Washington, D.C. It's the devil is what it is."
"I don't know who else it would be if it wasn't him," Jacob was quoted as saying. "There's been a lot of adversity. There's no question I've had experiences that I think there's an outside force."
His troubles, Jacob said Friday, include business deals gone bad, accusations that he illegally employed a Chilean couple and statements against him by people he thought were his friends.
"I'm a public figure, so I guess I expect it," he said.
When asked for more detail about how and why the devil would oppose his candidacy, Jacob declined to elaborate. "There are some things you keep to yourself," he said. "I shouldn't talk about it, including now."
Jacob said that several business deals have fallen through, making it harder to finance his campaign. Initially he said that he would pump as much as $1 million of his own money into the race.
Recent finance reports and campaign statements show that he has committed about half that amount, and on Friday he told the Herald: "It's been very difficult to finance my campaign."
Political candidates are often known to make religious references, such as mentioning God, in support of their positions or philosophies, said David Gutterman, a political science professor at Oregon's Linfield College and author of "Prophetic Politics: Christian Social Movements and American Democracy."
"I think it is less unusual today than it was 10 years ago," he said, adding that "the use of religious language has become more common under President Bush."
Before he was elected, for example, Bush was quoted by Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention as saying, "I feel like God wants me to run for president. ... But if that doesn't happen, that's OK."
Friday's online edition of The Economist elaborated on Bush's use of religious rhetoric, including a reference to a national prayer breakfast in 2003 in which Bush said he "felt the presence of the Almighty." (See full article at www.economist.com.)
Jacob's comments about Satan might not hurt him, Gutterman said. "The people he would alienate probably wouldn't vote for him anyway. The people he's going to attract are shoring up a base that probably shares his religious views."
Gutterman wondered, though, about the fact that trouble in Jacob's political campaign could as easily be attributed to the influence of God as to that of Satan.
"The presumption in his case is, obviously, God does not want him to fail," Gutterman said.
Jacob, a businessman from Eagle Mountain with little political experience, said he is looking at the episode as a teaching moment about how to express himself in an environment where every word out of his mouth lands in the public domain.
"That's something I need to learn, and you are educating me," he said. "I obviously shouldn't have said it."
Then he quipped: "The devil made me do it."
Jacob asked the Tribune not to quote him about Satan because he would be marked as "one of those screw-loose people."
Ordinarily, journalists consider all statements of public figures to be on the record unless an agreement otherwise is made in advance. Jacob appears to have made his comments to the Tribune with no such agreement, and they were published.
Republican voters will decide on Tuesday whether to nominate Jacob or Cannon to represent the party on November's general election ballot.
Did you say, SATAN?????
...SATAN?"
Dang! You beat me to it!
GMTA!!!!
I just clicked this thread to see how many church lady references were already on it, and I was not disappointed.
Nah. The politicians already belong to the devil, so there's no need for the devil to obstruct them. The Company does not compete against itself.
I don't know if he is a weirdo or not, but I do know that the media would cover this as they are, no matter what, because it involves Christian belief.
Well now, isn't that special : )
Actually, it sounds like he fell victim to an idiomatic usage that has fallen out of favor.
Saying that "the devil is against me," is like saying, "I've had a devil of a time," which translates to - "there have been a lot of unexpected obstacles."
The SL Trib is a total lefty wackjob rag. So, since it is most likely that the Republican will win the Utah 3rd disrict, whoever he is, it stands to reason the Trib would do a hatchet job on Jacob in support of the illegal-immigrant-loving Chris Cannon.
Jacob is just a nut, and that was clear well before his "Satan" comments. He even called Cannon a "bum" during the debate.
The funniest part is that he's totally not the anti-illegal-alien person many here would make him out to be. He has really said nothing of substance in his campaign that distinguishes him from Cannon on the issue. In the last week, he has been openly discussing a guest-worker program -- a "fast-pass" thing that he compares to passes to Disney Land.
A credible anti-immigration candidate could have taken Cannon out, but this guy is just a loser.
Yeah. People who believe in the existence of Satan are crazy. /sarc
The devil is real but in my experience, most of the time when someone says "It was the devil", it was really themselves not being very smart.
"We have met the enemy and it is us."
bttt
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