Posted on 03/13/2015 1:57:44 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
While its becoming common to hear Scott Walker dismissed as a flash-in-the-pan or Flavor of the Month or Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time gaffmeister sure to be pushed aside to make way for Jebs Brinks truck of cash or Rubios glamor, there are less-apparent aspects of his appeal worth noting. That intrepid translator of the Christian Rights codes, Sarah Posner, has a fascinating take at Religion Dispatches about Walker perfectly matching a growing mood among politically active conservative evangelicals who want a less showy but more reliable champion:
>>>>Should he run for president, Walker may very well turn out to be the 2016 cycles evangelical favoritenot because he ticks off a laundry list of culture war talking points, pledges fealty to a Christian nation, or because hes made a show of praying publicly to curry political favor. Although by no means universal, some conservative evangelicalsthose who eschew the fever swamps of talk radio, yet share the same political stances of the religious rightare weary of the old style of campaigning. Theyre turned off by the culture war red meat, the dutiful but insincere orations of piety .
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last month, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Conventions Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote that in 2016 evangelicals wont be looking to candidates to know the words to hymns, repeat clichés about appointing Supreme Court justices who will interpret the law, not make the law, or to use God and country talk borrowed from a 1980s-era television evangelist.
Moore has a good feel of the pulse of evangelicals and represents a wide segment of them, said Tobin Grant, a political scientist at Southern Illinois University and blogger on religion and politics for Religion News Service. Unlike his predecessor, Richard Land, known for inflaming the culture wars, Moores focus is more on religious and social concerns than directly political ones and has less interest in changing DC and more interest in keeping DC out of the way of the church, Grant said.
These evangelicals are listening for a candidate who can signal he is one of us without pandering. Both evangelical and Catholic candidates who have earned the culture warrior label for their strident pronouncementsTed Cruz, Rick Santorum, or Mike Huckabeeare seen as embarrassing embodiments of stereotypes these conservative Christians would like to shed .
Walker hits the right evangelical notes without overplaying his handand thats exactly the way they want him to keep it. John Mark Reynolds, professor of philosophy and provost at Houston Baptist University, said that Walker would do well to do nothing to appeal to us. We get it. Hes one of us. He sounds like one of us. He leans forward like one of us. He answers questions like one of us.<<<<
Now this isnt to say the new strain among conservative Christians involves any changes in their positions on culture-war issues, or a tolerance for different opinions: its a matter of tone and emphasisand of trust.
You may recall how effective George W. Bush was in dropping little indicators of his evangelical piety (even though, technically, he attended a mainline Protestant church), like a secret handshake, when he showed up on the campaign trail in the 2000 cycle: Bible quotes, allusions to hymns, and evangelical catch-phrases were modestly arrayed in his rhetoricnot abrasively, but just enough that believers saw it, and as with Walker, knew he was one of us. Bush, of course, also grounded much of his compassionate conservative agenda in church work and religious sentiment. It seems that with Walker conservative evangelicals dont much feel the need for compassion, which is a good thing, since its not one of his more obvious traits. No, they want something else:
>>>>Instead of talking about opposition to marriage equality, evangelical activists say, religious freedom has become the new defining mantra. Unlike marriage equality, on which white evangelicals, particularly Millennials, are divided, religious freedom unifies them like no other issue but abortion.
What will matter to evangelicals, Moore wrote in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, is how the candidate, if elected president, will articulate and defend religious-liberty rights.
The religious liberty issue is, for evangelicals, a four-alarm fire, said Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, part of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He said evangelicals expect the candidates to have the courage of their convictions to persuade people about whats going on.
From the Hobby Lobby litigation to cases involving florists, bakers, and photographers refusing to provide services for same-sex ceremonies, the issue has been percolating in the evangelical community for years. In recent weeks, conservative Christians have talked and written prolifically about Barronelle Stutzman, a Washington state florist found liable under the states anti-discrimination laws for refusing to provide flowers for a long-time gay customers wedding, and Kelvin Cochran, the Atlanta fire chief fired after revelations about anti-gay comments he wrote in a book.<<<<
It requires a great deal of paranoia and passive-aggressive claims of persecution, of course, to take isolated collisions between anti-discrimination laws and religious principles into a major threat to the immensely privileged position of Christians in the United States. But it seems Christian Right leaders are up to the task, and here, too, Walker, with his quiet but insistent talk about death threats from the enemies hes made in Wisconsin, fills the bill.
Speaking in 2012 to a teleconference with activists from Ralph Reeds Faith and Freedom Coalition, Walker said his faith has enabled him to rise above the vitriol, and the constant, ongoing hatred during the recall election he faced in the wake of his anti-union legislation, which has crippled the states once-iconic labor movement. Along with the unmistakable contrast of his church-going family with the profane and progressive activists, Walker cited two Bible verses. He didnt recite them, but for anyone who knows their Bibleas Walker, the son of a Baptist pastor, doesthe meaning was clear. The verses that helped him withstand the hatred were Romans 16:20 (The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you) and Isaiah 54:17 (no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.)
Dont know about you, but Id interpret those two verses as consolatory promises of Christian vengeance, not turn-the-other-cheeck pacifism. And so it may be Walker is giving exactly the right impression of representing stolid but not showy vindicator whos in for a long fight with secular socialists and their union allies.
Ed Kilgore edits the Political Animal blog and is a contributing writer to the Washington Monthly. He is managing editor for the Democratic Strategist, a weekly columnist at Talking Points Memo, and the author of Election 2014: Why Republicans Swept the Midterms, recently published by the University of Pennsylvania Press
No. No, I do not.
Care to regurgitate it for us, Mr. 'Screw You And Your Principles!'?
Is this the same "they" who keep telling us to "vote Republican...because....Democrats!"?
“Compassionate Conservatism” is neither compassionate nor conservative.
After 6 years of Jimmy Carter without the brains or the soul, I’d say that would be an improvement, if it weren’t just plain ludicrous.
Without the Compassion—
—or fat brother.
That headline works for me!
I thought this all along...;-(
I heard Scott Walker on a conservative Boston radio show today praising Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
Dolan....who is all in for amnesty, income redistribution, and gun grabbing. I nearly threw up.
Reading Dr. Suess on the Senate floor was a bit over the top for me. There was a LOT he could have talked about instead.
I think for most of us it will come down to a vote between 3 candidates. Walker, Cruz, and Rubio.
I like Cruz but I don’t think he can win the main election even if he wins the primaries. He comes across too right for the more moderate and Independents. To me he’s just fine though.
Rubio lost me when he actively campaigned for the immigration amnesty and the gang of eight plan.
Walker has proven himself to be highly capable. I like the idea of having a president who was a governor at one time. Governors have the best experience to managing lots of other pols. He just needs to bone up on foreign affairs.
I also believe Walker can win the main election. He is just enough center right and he speaks without a lot um’s, ah’s, and long pauses. I bet he can even keep going without a teleprompter unlike the current potus.
I really hope Jeb Bush bows out early on. He and his priorities are the last thing this country needs. He might even be worse than W was in his second term.
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.