Posted on 06/08/2008 8:20:37 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
Lori Viars, an evangelical activist in Warren County, Ohio, essentially put her life on hold in the fall of 2004 to run a phone bank for President Bush. Her efforts helped the president’s ambitious push to turn out evangelicals and win that critical swing state in a close election.
But Ms. Viars, who is among a cluster of socially conservative activists in Ohio being courted by Senator John McCain’s campaign through regular e-mail messages, is taking a wait-and-see attitude for now toward Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
“I think a lot of us are in a holding pattern,” said Ms. Viars, who added that she wanted to see whom Mr. McCain picked for his running mate.
Ms. Viars’s hesitation illustrates what remains one of Mr. McCain’s biggest challenges as he faces a general election contest with Senator Barack Obama: a continued wariness toward him among evangelicals and other Christian conservatives, a critical voting bloc for Republicans that could stay home in the fall or at least be decidedly unenthusiastic in their efforts to get out the vote.
To address this, Mr. McCain’s campaign has been ramping up its outreach to evangelicals over the last month, preparing a budget and a strategic plan for turning them out in 18 battleground states this fall.
The campaign has been peppering over 600 influential grass-roots and national leaders in the evangelical movement with regular e-mail messages — highlighting, for example, Mr. McCain’s statement criticizing a May 15 decision by the California Supreme Court overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, or his recent speech on his judicial philosophy. It has also held briefings for small groups of conservative leaders before key speeches.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
McCain already turned on Hagee.
Huh? They were calling Hillary "presumptive" two years ago. I think it's safe to call McPain the Republican nominee at this point.
What are the evangelicals waiting for?
McCain is pro-life. He won’t do anything with the embryonic stem-cell research........so don’t worry about that.
The important thing is that he is pro-life, and won’t kill the babies or support Planned Parenthood like ‘Bama does.
Wake up, evangelicals!
>> Wake up, evangelicals!
Oh, I’m awake.
Waiting to see if he’ll pick the homosexual Florida governor for VP. Pandering to the gay lobby would NOT be out of character for McCain.
Some people are so twisted with hate for McCain they will latch onto anything to avoid having to conclude they must vote for him.
Really? He's just as pro-life as he needs to be to make it in the party (the Guiliani fiasco proved that an openly pro-choice Republican ain't going nowhere). Nevertheless; real pro-life candidates don't push for embryonic research, they don't try to silence pro-life groups, and they certainly never suggest that RvW should by upheld.
At best he's personally opposed to abortion; which is nice, but fails to provide me with a reason to vote for him.
McCain is pro-life. He does not believe in abortion.
Do your homework and research, please.
So are you saying you will vote for Obama, then?
If Catholics can vote 'NO' on Obama, I challenge you to also.
US Bishops Urge Voters to Give Priority to Life [Ecumenical]
Corralling the Catholic vote: Political necessity or pipe dream?
DOUG KMIEC: Catholic Reasons for Hope in the General Election
EDITORIAL: Why This Catholic Dreads the Campaign The Catholic-Obama Problem (Pope Benedict XVI instructs Catholics about pro-abortion candidates)
Thoughts On ‘Roman Catholics For Obama’
How Obama's Catholics Will Dodge the Infanticide Question
Catholic Pro-Life Leader Feuds With Barack Obama's "Catholic" Backers
McCain and the Pope: McCain cannot win in November without the Catholic vote (Reagan re-visited?)
Catholics Cannot Vote for Pols Who Support Abortion, Except for Morally Grave Reasons: KY Bishops
You are right. I still can’t decide whether Bambi or mccain would be worse.
Giving no thought to voting for either of them.
Thank you for the links. As a lapsed Catholic, I have drifted away from the church but I do respect the church’s intellectual and theological knowledge. I will enjoy reading through these.
Your own link contradicts this...
Referring to recent reports that researchers have reprogrammed mature adult human skin cells to produce embryonic-like stem cells, McCain said he believes "skin stem cell research has every potential very soon of making" the issue of embryonic stem cell research "academic." He said that his decision to support embryonic stem cell research was "one of the toughest" he has had to make, adding that one reason he favors the research is "those embryos will be either discarded or kept in permanent frozen status."
Dude... I have fallen for that worse of two evils before.
If we survived Jimmy we can survive Bambi. I assure you I will lose no sleep either way.
It is kind of fun picking a write in name.
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