Posted on 09/19/2007 7:14:10 PM PDT by pissant
DENVER (AP) — James Dobson, one of the nation's most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.
In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.
"Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a 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.
"He 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? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"
The founder and chairman of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, Dobson draws a radio audience in the millions, many of whom who first came to trust the child psychologist for his conservative Christian advice on child-rearing.
Gary Schneeberger, a Focus on the Family spokesman, confirmed that Dobson wrote the e-mail. Schneeberger declined to comment further, saying it would be inappropriate because Dobson's comments about presidential candidates are made as an individual and not as a representative of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization restricted from partisan politics.
Dobson's strong words about Thompson underscore the frustration and lack of unity among Christian conservatives about the GOP field. Some Christian right leaders have pinned their hopes on Thompson, describing him as a Southern-fried Ronald Reagan. But others have voiced doubts in recent weeks about some of the same issues Dobson highlighted: his position on gay marriage and support for the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation.
Dobson and other Christian conservatives support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would bar gay marriage nationally. Thompson has said he would support a constitutional amendment that would prohibit states from imposing their gay marriage laws on other states, which falls well short of that.
Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the Thompson campaign, said Wednesday in response to the Dobson e-mail: "Fred Thompson has a 100 percent pro-life voting record. He believes strongly in returning authority to the levels of government closest to families and communities, protecting states from intrusion by the federal government and activist judges.
"We're confident as voters get to know Fred, they'll appreciate his conservative principles, and he is the one conservative in this race who can win the nomination and can go on to defeat the Democratic nominee."
In his e-mail addressed "Dear friends," Dobson includes the text of a recent news story highlighting Thompson's statement that while he was baptized in the Church of Christ, he does not attend church regularly and won't speak about his faith on the stump.
U.S. News and World Report quoted Dobson earlier this year as questioning Thompson's commitment to the Christian faith — comments Dobson contended were not put in proper context. Dobson in this week's e-mail writes that suppositions "about the former senator's never having professed to be a Christian are turning out to be accurate in substance."
Earlier this year, Dobson said he wouldn't back John McCain because of the Arizona senator's opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Later, Dobson wrote on a conservative news Web site that he wouldn't support former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani should he win the Republican nomination. Dobson called Giuliani an "unapologetic supporter of abortion on demand" and criticized him for signing a bill in 1997 creating domestic-partnership benefits in New York City.
Last week, Dobson announced on his radio show that the IRS had cleared him of accusations that he had endangered his organization's nonprofit status by endorsing Republican candidates in 2004. The IRS said Dobson, who endorsed President Bush's re-election bid, was acting as an individual and not on behalf of the nonprofit group.
My mother put me on the mailing list when I got married. I was reading it before that for many years, as well. I own Dare to Discipline, Bringing up Boys, and the Strong Willed Child. My favorite radio show has a bit by him several times a day.
I don’t like Dobson’s recent judgmental comments. I don’t like being considered somehow “unChristian” because I don’t think that the marriage amendment or a right to life amendment will ever get passed, and that we need to work in other directions.
I think Dobson has become proud and uses his power in totally inappropriate ways.
So I am done with him and his organization.
“His power is that he is not primarily political and he reaches parents, moms, etc. that otherwise would be almost completely uninvolved in or unaware of politics”
Which makes this email even WORSE because it is irresponsible, and his unsuspecting supporters don’t even know his own people are lying about it!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1899326/posts?page=926#926
All that shows is that his phone bank people hadn’t been given instructions on what to say and didn’t know how to answer the question asked. These are phone people, customer service types. That’s all. It’s like holding something against AT&T’s CEO because you got a misinformed representative on a call.
They LIED, Greg.
Flat out lied. HIS people, who represent him.
Inexcusable.
I should buy “The Strong Willed Child” . . . my girl is very stubborn. I don’t know as much about Dobson as I should to go to bat in this thread for him; I’ve only had contact through listening to his radio show, CD’s of it on family trips, and an occassional e-mail or website page that my wife shows me. It’s always been good sense to me so I’ve been surprised at how adamant people have been.
I’ve been thinking that the Fred Heads are afraid that the Emperor has no clothes . . . and want to shut up anyone that points to any weaknesses on Thompson’s part, hoping to create an aura of invincibility to make up for a problematic candidate. My take is that Hunter is the better candidate and should be getting Conservative support.
I’ve been a trial attorney. You say the phone person “lied.” What if her neighbor in the next cubical at work and she discussed that there was something up with some alleged letter from Dobson, her neighbor said something along the lines that she wasn’t even sure Dobson had written an e-mail at all about Thompson, that it might be a rumor, and then that lady twisted it in her own mind, and spouted it off to politicalmom as truth? That’s how most of these types of things happen — not “lies.” Not worth getting the undergarments in a bunch over, in my opinion.
Since she gave the company line about him being a “private citizen”, along with the hoax story, I don’t believe that.
Of course, it couldn’t be that we Thompson supporters think he is THE BEST person for the job, no, it has to be that we are stupid, ill-informed, and trying to trick people into voting for a weak candidate. Yeah, that must be it.
What a foul point of view.
I thought those were two different people — the first operator and then the supervisor? Dobson prefers to hire locally in Colorado where he is from for a lot of his ministry. It’s not a sort of monolithic group there; it’s a big organization with local townspeople types working there. Guess I’m saying they are not all rocket scientists or saints called to work at Focus on the Family.
Well, that explains a lot!
Gee, who to believe? A trial attorney or Politicalmom?
Hmmmm.....
Thanks! I have heard nothing but positive feedback about Dobson.
Not exactly what I was saying. More that the Fred Heads at FR get really bent out of shape at any criticism. I guess it surprises me because this isn’t the general election, we don’t have to rally around one candidate yet and we can discuss the options.
The first woman said it had been twisted by the media, it wasn’t really the way it had been portrayed, and implied that Dobson didn’t write it. I asked two or three times if that’s what she was claiming. She squirmed around re-wording her statements, then said I should talk to another department.
I wouldn’t have bothered moving on to the other department if I hadn’t wanted to find out if in fact it was a hoax.
He has rejected politicians such as Fred Thompson and Rudy Guiliani who have had no personal interaction with him. Yet, embraces Newt Gingrich after he basically grovels in front of him. It just seems to me that Mr. Dobson almosts expectsthis recognition of his personal power from any candidate he endorses.
Greg, if it is true that he has welcomed Newt, with Newt's troubling marital history, can you give me some input on his reasoning? I have never seen that Newt has proclaimed himself to be especially Christian.
I think that he owes the country a reason for his twice criticizing Fred Thompson, and as another poster commented, I find an email to a select few (apparently leaked) to be quite covert from one in his position in the Evangelical community.
It really comes across to me as an abuse of his power during a political campaign in his not giving Fred a public opportunity to either defend himself or rebut the reason entirely.
We have been hammered with people impugning our intelligence, (”You only like him because he’s an actor.”, people lying about Fred’s record, people making fun of his age, his baggy eyes, his wife, and people calling him “lazy” and an “empty suit” against all evidence.
We are sick to death of the shallow sniping.
Indeed.
“This is a common lie of Satan, perhaps the root of his lies — you can be as God, you can be God, you do not need God —”
This is a common lie of Satan - and Satan is the Father of lies - that you are telling me what you think I believe but that is not what I believe at all.
Lattter Day Saints believe in the New Testament teaching that we are children of God, and “if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Romans 8:16-17. A central promise of the Gospel is that the righteous can be “joint-heirs” with Christ, whom God the father “hath annointed heir of all things.” Hebrews 1:2, John 16:15.
As joint heirs with Christ and thus heirs of all things, we can also be as “lord of all” Galatians 4:1 and realize the full glory of being an “heir of God through Christ.” Galatians 4:7 (”Wherefore, thou art no more a servant but a son and if a son then an heir of God through Christ”), and Titus 3:7.
This helps understand the full intent of Christ’s commandment to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven which is also perfect” Matthew 5:48 and to graps the full meaning of the Apostle Paul’s statement, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, Philippians 3:14-15.
This knowledge of the doctrine of heirship also helps us understand who the Gods will be who are instructed to “worship him, all ye gods” (Psalms 97:7) when the Lord comes in glory at the beginning of his millennial reign, Psalms 97:1-10.
There are numerous references in the Old and New Testaments referring to more than one God. For example Genesis 1:26 (”let us make man in our own image, after our likeness”); Genesis 3:22 (”man is become one of us, to know good and evil”); Genesis 11:7 (”let us go down and there confound their language”); Exodus 15:11 (”O Lord, among the Gods”); Deuteronomy 10:17 (”The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords”); Psalms 95:3 (”The Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods.”)
But we know that Heavenly Father is our “one Lord” and responsible for the affairs of this earth, and that He works with and through Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. Ephesians 4:5-6, and many, many other Scriptures.
Please, please, do NOT be satan’s mouthpiece against Mormons. Stop letting yourself be brainwashed. Think for yourself, FReeper pal. Pray for yourself. Ask God for yourself. Apparently, your sources of spiritual information are faulty. I used to be where you are.
Dobson may also be playing to have Thompson commit himself to some of the issues that Dobson believes are critical in order to earn Dobson's support.
If this type of scenario were described with Jesse Jackson and Hillary instead of Thompson and Dobson, would you approve? Hinkley and Romney? A Catholic Cardinal and Guiliani? "Playing" with their influence?
Does anyone else find this ethically troubling?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.