I recently had a cousin die of brain cancer within 4 months after diagnosis. She was only 49 and had been an oncology nurse for over 25 years. She was a wonderful person who helped many people with a strong faith and a tremendously positive and selfless spirit.
Do you really believe that Molly Ivins experienced breast cancer and her disease progressed over 6-7 years to the metastatic stage because she has an unhealthy soul resulting from an ultra-liberal political point of view? What's more likely is that she was a smoker during her lifetime or she has a genetic predisposition to breast cancer and her cancer is of a type that did not respond well to standard therapies.
As someone working in the field of oncology, let me tell you that cancer kills Republicans as well as Democrats, people of faith as well as those of little faith.
I do personally think that stress, keeping emotions bottled up, anger, etc., can lead to disease and/or exacerbate a genetic predisposition to disease. But certainly some if not most disease can be random and unexplainable.
For heaven's sake no I don't think that Molly Ivins is experiencing breast cancer because she's liberal. How insane would that be? Cancer is indifferent. Her recovery or lack thereof could be determined by her attitude about whether or not she thinks life's worth living.