This was a once great paper..now it's out-of-touch liberalism has ruined it..shame..
Posted on 04/20/2015 12:22:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Well, at least the Dallas Morning News was kinda nice to Liberty University. In the lede to its story on Ted Cruz in New Hampshire, the newspaper called it a "huge evangelical Christian college." Once upon a time, many mainstream media routinely slapped Liberty with the "F" word: "Fundamentalist."
But the paper doesn't prove its claim that Cruz sounded less evangelical, more secular in his New Hampshire visit to sound more presidential. It therefore pushes a related stereotype: that Americans don’t particularly like evangelicals.
DMN paints Cruz as a conservative's conservative as well as an evangelical's evangelical. It says the believers' bloc can be active and ardent, but that Cruz will have to broaden his appeal to win the White House:
"Cruz’s initial focus on the evangelical vote made tactical sense. In a large, splintered Republican field, having a base to build from could be critical. But there’s a pitfall: By focusing so tightly on social conservatives, he could alienate others, ending up with a very enthusiastic sliver of the electorate."
“People I’ve talked to are excited about him. And yet there are some who are nervous, because of what he’s saying,” said Kathleen Lauer-Rago, chairwoman of the Merrimack County GOP."
The story tries to back up the assertion by citing exit polls in 2012, which showed that equal numbers of New Hampshire people (22 percent) are "very conservative" and "born-again Christians." However, it blurs the fact that "born-again" is not the same as "evangelical," a fact long brought out in Barna polls.
DMN also doesn't report whether the poll said it was the same people in both categories. The most we get is a Cruz supporter who says he and his family are "very conservative" and "conservative Christians." That doesn't prove, of course, that they're all alike.
Other Republican candidates are sized up as well in this story -- Scott Walker, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee -- but it mentions evangelical support only for Huckabee. In fact, as sociologist Tobin Grant has pointed out, as many believers voted for Romney in 2012 as for the more "evangelical" candidate, Rick Santorum.
The DMN piece comes close to promoting another stereotype, of the gruff, aging conservative Christian. The main photo shows pot-bellied old men in VFW hats clapping at a conservative rally in Merrimack, N.H. And quoted sources are said to be 47, 64 and 69 years old. Only at the very end does the story add a 20-year-old college student in Cruz' camp.
At least we get a good sampling of the issues Cruz has been highlighting: taxes, national security, the national debt, gun rights, religious freedom and repealing Obamacare. But we learn little on how he supposedly played these up while downplaying faith matters.
Even after setting up evangelicals as radioactive beings that could taint Cruz' presidential chances, the DMN story quotes Kathleen Lauer-Rago, the GOP officer, that New Hampshire voters share Cruz' talking points. "I don’t think he’s pigeonholed himself at all," she concludes. Well, then, who has been trying to pigeonhole Ted? Political writers, perhaps?
Sociologist Grant challenges the whole image of religious Republicans, saying bluntly, "There is no evangelical movement within the GOP." Blogging for the Religion News Service, Grant says that evangelicals hold some beliefs in common, and they have strong leaders who try to muster political clout. But he says they're not organized as, say, Sierra Club or the NAACP.
Grant even starts sounding like we often do at GetReligion:
This idea that evangelicals would somehow back a candidate simply because some religious-turned-political celebrity said so is more than myth. It is an insulting, offensive stereotype of evangelicals as sheep who believe and act in response to what they’re told. They couldn’t be thoughtful voters (or as thoughtful as any other voter) who decide to back candidates without the aid of pastors or pundits. Evangelicals as loyal, dim-witted followers is a stereotype that continues to exist despite clear evidence to the contrary.
I'll have to say that the Dallas story is more even-handed than some. The Daily Beast ran a dim appraisal for Cruz, by Jacob Lupfer, a political science student at Georgetown University. He says that "party insiders" always ending up choosing who runs for president.
"Unfortunately for Cruz, there is little reason to believe that the Republican Party is going to nominate someone who looks and talks like a televangelist," Lupfer says snidely. "The nominee ends up being someone the party feels is a safer bet for the general election but whose religious commitment evangelicals greet with private, and sometimes public, skepticism."
But neither Dallas nor the Beast reflect actual American views of religious groups. A Pew Forum survey last year found that most feel warm toward evangelicals, just a point or two south of Jews and Catholics. Lowest on the totem are Muslims and atheists.
The DMN story has so many holes, so many assumptions, I'm tempted to say it has social and political variants of tmatt's original religious "ghosts." Perhaps the writer felt free to analyze more freely because the story ran under a "Politics" label. But it would have been packaged better as opinion or commentary.
This was a once great paper..now it's out-of-touch liberalism has ruined it..shame..
And if you’re ever heard Fox News Radio updates, you’d swear they were MSM by the way they do the same garbage of sound bites from the RATS, but characterizing what Republicans say. It was especially disgraceful when Her Heinous announced and they were breaking into programming for hours with alerts!
Look, if Ted Cruz has to make arguments with the toughest audience of all—the members of the United States Supreme Court—Hillary Clinton would be a piece of cake. And the Left knows it clearly.
That is huge in and of itself. Of course, they will not say it the way I just have.
But, it did put the country-clubbers on notice.
I don’t know what he is lol. Some kind of hybrid species, liberal/conservative/libertarian beast. Either way, don’t go away mad just go away. Hucksterbee too. He has nothing offer. We are paving the way for Bush to win with so many people spitting us up
[We are paving the way for Bush to win with so many people spitting us up]
I don’t see CRUZ supporters defecting to another camp. They are in it for the long haul.
The Dallas Boring Snooze? Pathetic rag.
yeah but thee aren’t enough Cruz supporters to overcome JEb right now. Those needed supporters would come from Paul’s and Rubio’s and Hucksterbee’s camps. Or else we will each get 10 percent and Bush will get 18 and Walker will get 15 and we will have Bush!!
Agree, there should only be one proper conservative and the others like Paul, Huckabee need to make way, because like you said . If they don’t then it opens the way for Bush which is he hoping for.
And we cant let that happen. What goes through the mind of a Hucksterbee or Graham? They have no chance. Even Paul must know he has no chance. Would they let the party burn for their own self important delusions.
They’re blocking for Jebbie on purpose.
May they all get leprosy.
I think for me the answer is yes. They care about themselves, but I think with Paul he is there for himself and his father. He was groomed by his father and I see his daddy is not too far away on the campaign trial.
Cruz can go all the way if these idiots and panderers got out of the way.
Anyway, he has the right strategy for winning. And he's upfront in talking about it.
In NH on Sunday, Ted described the typical consultant's recommendation to run just to the right of the liberal Democrap, to grab all of the spectrum to the right. "This seems to make sense in the abstract, but in reality, the Democrats who lean conservative have no reason to switch parties, and the conservatives stay home in significant numbers."
"The way to win is to run as a conservative. This brings out the conservatives and the Reagan Democrats... Have you ever noticed that there aren't any 'Ford Democrats' or 'Dole Democrats'?"
Yea I think so or for themselves and in Paul’s case for his daddy.
They know they can’t win and yet still are there just like Paul’s daddy in the last couple of elections. The family is nuts as his some of their voters.
“People I’ve talked to are excited about him. And yet there are some who are nervous, because of what he’s saying,” said Kathleen Lauer-Rago, chairwoman of the Merrimack County GOP.”
...
I wonder how many Republicans the DMN questioned before they got the quote they wanted?
After SC, or shortly thereafter, the only viable candidates left, i.e., candidates with a significant war chest, will be Bush, Walker, Cruz, Paul and Rubio. At that point I think it will be down to Bush, Walker and Cruz. Walker and Cruz would have a chance against Bush.
I'm encouraged by the fact that right now, given his name recognition, Bush is trailing Walker in Iowa, NH and SC.
There’s no freaking time left to lose another election!!! What the hell am I reading about a 1/10 of a billion dollar mosque in Maryland paid for by Ergodan!?!?!!?! Did I fall asleep for twenty years and miss something.
I SAW THE PLANES HIT THE BUILDINGS ON THE WAY TO WORK!!!. I donated blood back on staten island.
I spent a year taking the detour route to midtown and seeing the last dangling remnants of what were two of the world’s most beautiful buildings and in which I had TWO JOBS. THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL AND THEY WERE DESTROYED!!!! Did we forget!!!! We are making a nuke treaty with some piece of sh.t sand n.gger country that celebrated the attack!!?? And we have an African president whose father HATED US and now he hates us. I HATE The people that voted for him. They are as much our enemy as islam is. Make no mistake about it.
What is gong on!!!!!
CRUZ OR THIS COUNTRY WILL LOSE!!
and FU islam and FU Ergodan and FUBO
Agreed,. Paul will show good in NH due to them being liberal on mostly social issues and they also like the establishment which is good for Bush. So I expect Cruz to show well after NH and down in the south and Midwest. bush and Walker will be there with their war chest and maybe Rubio with Hispanics.
Agreed we cannot lose this election and we need control of Congress to overturn all this idiotic failed policy, social issues and, immigration, not forgetting the military which Paul would devastate and carry on Obama’s foreign policy
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