Posted on 09/24/2007 7:00:11 AM PDT by Doofer
WASHINGTON – A well-known evangelical leader opposed Dr. James Dobson’s criticism of presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, pointing out the candidate’s conservative views and his potential to win the ’08 election.
“He (Thompson)’s obviously against same-sex marriage. He doesn’t support quite the same constitutional amendment that some of the others of us do, but he’s been talking with us about it, and has been moving closer and closer on the amendment,” said Bauer, who is president of American Values, according to OneNewsNow.
“So I hope that we can, as a movement, be very wise about this, and not savage candidates that we may very well have to support in 2008 if they’re running against Hillary Clinton.”
Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Colo.-based Focus on the Family, wrote in a private e-mail last week to friends and supporters that he will not support Thompson for president because he is too weak on key issues that concern the Christian right.
In particular, he criticized Thompson for not supporting a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay “marriage” on a national scale.
Thompson, an actor and former senator, is against same-sex “marriage” but favors a softer stance, calling for each state to decide their own legal definition of marriage and forbidding states from imposing their marriage laws on other states.
“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to the constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote, according to The Associated Press.
The prominent Christian conservative also blasted Thompson for his seeming lack of commitment to Christianity, highlighting the candidate’s rare expression of faith and for not attending church regularly.
“He (Thompson) has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians?” wrote Dobson.
“Not for me, my brothers. Not for me.”
Bauer, however, defended Thompson as an evangelical favorite and predicted that he can still win the Christian support if he confirms his conservative stance, performs well in debates, and demonstrates ability to raise campaign funds.
“I think the one thing that almost every conservative Christian agrees about is that we cannot allow Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States,” concluded Bauer.
According to the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the race for the 2008 GOP nomination is highly fluid, with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Fred Thompson virtually tied at 24 and 19 percent, respectively. Not far behind at 15 percent is Sen. John McCain of Arizona while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 7 percent.
In contrast, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has a clear, across-the-board lead in the Democratic race over Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 34 percent to 20 percent, roughly the margin she has enjoyed for months.
I know who Dobson is.
And he is supporting Gingrich, otherwise he would never have given Newt a forum to reach out to evangelicals and seek their forgiveness.
By doing so, Dobson gave Newt his blessing, so to speak.
Dobson knows if he can pull off the evangelical vote for Gingrich, he will have enormous access and influence in a Gingrich administration.
Seems Dobson fancies himself some sort of pied piper.
He’s just now discovering that he’s not.
Gary Bauer??? I’m not sure I would want him on my side.
The question wasn’t to you...it was a misprint on my part and was directed to counterpunch.
Bingo!...
I thought that Dobson’s beef with Thompson was that Fred wouldn’t wear his religion on his sleeve.
I do admit, I could be wrong, there have been so many opinion pieces that it may have blurred people guessing the reason versus the stated reason. I’ll do some digging and see if I can find the article on the original ‘leaked’ email.
Karen Cross? A well known Democrat apologist and moderate. RTL has all but sold out... worse than the NRA has done. Whoever she supports is defacto instantly suspect.
Your statement is 100% false, which if you've paid any attention on the previous threads dealing with the issue, you would know. See mnehrling's #15 for a very brief rundown - the claim that Fred "lobbied for abortion groups" is utter nonsense, and borders on being the sort of underhanded, poisoning-the-well rubbish we'd expect of Team Clinton. Further, to say that Fred is "agnostic" on abortion (which seems to me to be the intent of your statements) is laughable. The guy has a 100% pro-life voting record in the Senate (i.e., where it "counts"). That's "agnostic" on abortion? What planet are you transmitting from?
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12062
"It's not a coincidence that you saw Dr. Dobson attacking Fred Thompson when he did," says a former associate of Dobson's. "There's a strategy here, and it's about clearing the way for Gingrich to get in....Shortly after Gingrich appeared on Dobson's radio show earlier this year and poured his heart our to Dobson, who forgave him for past personal indiscretions, Dobson attacked Thompson for not being -- in Dobson's view -- a Christian. That attack was interpreted by many to be Dobson's attempt to deflate what was then growing support for Thompson within the social conservative movement."
The same planet that says that Mitt Romney is a pro-life crusader despite never having previously run for elective office as anything other than a pro-choice (and proud of it) politician.
If you haven’t yet, see the letter in post #39.
Do you have a link to support your charge?
(and make sure you don't confuse her with the outspoken leftist lawyer from Atlanta who is also named Karen Cross, they are two different people. I've seen a lot of people mix those two up.)
For those who are interested, Ms. Cross' personal story:
http://www.nrlc.org/news/1999/NRL799/atlg.htm
Case in point, the last election. It’s these “all or nothing” folks that are gonna kill us.
HSWs?
I paid very close attention to those threads and watched the Thompson backers in full denial mode even as their candidate was backing off his own denial.
Forgive me, I am not up on all of the acronyms.
Although that might be the intent (and the ultimate effect), I doubt it is a formal conspiracy involving Dobson and Gingrich.
Gingrich is too controversial to win even against Hillary's negatives. Too bad we couldn't take Gingrich's policies and Huckabee's personal life and put them together.
Check your freepmail.
Thanks. Got it.
They treat Christianity as just another political pressure group ... and thereby jettison the One Thing that makes us different from political pressure groups.
Not that Christians shouldn't be aware and active ... but this stuff reminds me of this passage:
But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." (Matt. 16:23)
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