Posted on 09/28/2007 8:57:19 PM PDT by neverdem
Religious conservatives are at odds over which of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination should get their backing.
Many of the top leaders on the religious right privately say it's impossible to name a top-tier, declared Republican hopeful who can pass the "straight face" test as someone social conservatives can honestly say they would trust if elected.
Catholics and Protestant evangelicals on the right account for about a third of the Republican Party's electoral coalition, and it's difficult for a Republican to win without them.
"The problem is that there isn't someone seen as a titular head of the evangelicals who provides guidance on what and who they should be supporting," said Merrill Matthews, an evangelical and resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas.
Most leaders of major social conservative organizations don't like to talk outside their own circles about the movement's splintering. Few are eager to be quoted about internecine antagonisms developing, in part because they fear it will undermine the movement's political clout and the eventual Republican nominee's chances of winning the Oval Office.
But religious-right leaders consider national political leadership a moral trust, and after several secret summits, these leaders are deeply, sometimes acrimoniously, at odds.
Focus on the Family President James Dobson twice said publicly that former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson is not a Christian.
American Values founder Gary Bauer told The Washington Times that Mr. Dobson, once Mr. Bauer's mentor, "hurt the whole conservative Christian movement" by so labeling Mr. Thompson. "Come on, Dobson can't even come up with a biblical basis for saying something like that."
Mr. Bauer also called such action unwise, saying it makes likelier social conservatives' worst fears — a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency or the GOP nomination going to former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Dobson is an IDIOT !!
Who is Dobson to know the mind of Elohim ?shalom b'shem Yah'shuaSuch arrogance is astonishing !
what an utter moron.
Dobson is certainly not an idiot. He’s a very intelligent man. I think he’s calling Thompson out to personally correct him. So far, Thompson has chosen not to do so.
Duncan Hunter, though, is what the social conservatives are looking for.
But these repeated trash articles; those I have a problem with. Totally useless even for wrapping fish, as cross contamination might occur.
I say Dobson's not a Republican.
Screw Dobson!! I am a Christian and I don’t agree with this self proclaimed representative of Christians in America. I am a Catholic and I am sure that this Wacko doesn’t like or respect me either.
No, that's not a problem Merrill.
I don't need a "titular head of the evangelicals" to provide guidance an what and who I should be supporting.
No, it definitely seems James Dobson has lost his mind.
There is no “head” save for Christ.
We have His Word to follow.
Nope, to make THOMPSON correct Dobson.
“The problem is that there isn’t someone seen as a titular head of the evangelicals who provides guidance on what and who they should be supporting,”
This statement baffles me. Protestants usually don’t like someone on high telling them what to do. It’s in their makeup.
Questioning a fellow Christians faith twice since March is not a smart move. Not to mention questioning Fred`s integrity and veracity on top of it. However, "Father" Dobson appears to be backing Newt, so that may hold the answer to his strange behavior.
>>>>Duncan Hunter, though, is what the social conservatives are looking for.
Wrong. I'm a social conservative and I'm not looking to back a 1% candidate. Ridiculous. Hunter`s got a fine conservative record, just a poor presidential candidate.
Horse Hockey
I don't either. The gatekeepers, in the media, in the party, and the erstwhile conservative and Christian organizations out there, are so busy making political calculations instead of basing their decisions on the bedrock of principle that they have made themselves useless.
And Gary Bauer sure doesn't represent me. Few of these people do, it seems.
Thou shalt not take the name of Dobson in vain. Get down on your knees and repent sinner!
March 28, 2007
“Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson, considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the U.S. said in a phone call to Dan Gilgoff, senior editor at U.S. News & World Report.
“[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian. At least that’s my impression.”
Thompson’s spokesman Mark Corallo took issue with the statement.
“Thompson is indeed a Christian,” he said. “He was baptized into the Church of Christ.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/28/151351.shtml
I think you nailed it.
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