Ooogggaaa Booooggggaaaa Part I

Jonah Goldberg revisits the Philosophy of Oogedy-Boogedy-ism and the nature of religious thought in conservatism. Jonah outlines his thoughts based on the notion many seem to believe Conservatism and religion have only very recently been fused together and that is driving much of the angst against social conservatives. Jonah reaches back into the history books to find a discussion from 1962 that basically assumes much religious thought as part and parcel of conservatism, in addition Jonah notes that National Review in its early days was often nearly indistinguishable from a religious publication, whereas that is hardly the case now-a-days.

In the wake of all the Sarah Palin mishigas, it occurs to me that lots of people seem to believe that modern conservatism was, until the day before yesterday, a purely urbane, secular, affair with perhaps a good deal of pro-forma nodding to religion but little spiritual devotion. According to this storyline, the religious yahoos have "taken over the party" and places like National Review have become infected with their St. Vitus' dance.

Source: The Corner — Religion and the Right (Jonah Goldberg) Jonah then goes onto discuss the notion of compelled vs. freely chosen virtue and excerpts a discussion of that debate from 1962. That is an interesting line of thought in and of itself, but that is not my purpose here.

The point is that religion in conservative circles is hardly a new phenomena.

I have noted this before in this venue, but what has changed is the makeup of what I generally call the socially conservative voter. The part of the conservative base that votes based more on their faith than on other considerations is different.

Back before the days of McGovern the Democratic Party was every bit as comfortable with religion in the public square as the Republicans are today, and neither party held an advantage with the religious voter. The religious voter with economically liberal or populist preferences could feel very comfortable in voting for a Democrat. That voter did not feel torn between a candidate they viewed as being hostile towards the bedrock of their world view but in line with their economic values. This is what Mike Huckabee captured:

Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism. Rather than employing the ­patented Bush-Rove tactic of using abortion and gay rights to hoodwink low-­income Christians into supporting patrician, pro-corporate policies, Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new — a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.

Source: Rolling Stone — Matt Taibbi on Mike Huckabee, Our Favorite Right-Wing Nut Job (Matt Taibbi)

Get over Taibbi's deranged language and you note the only thing standing in way of him liking a former Republican presidential nominee contender is the "G thing". That in a nutshell is what we are going through here.

Ramesh Ponnurru in an National Review article talking about religion in politics noted today's Democrats approach the religious voter as an anthropologist would approach a newly found tribe of humans in the Amazon jungle and this has driven many of those voters to the GOP.

Along with those voters come impulses contrary to conservatism. Sometime ago I read an article warning the GOP of getting too cozy with fundamentalists noting fundamentalists could be just as enthusiastic for big and intrusive government. However, these voters are key in the GOP's ability to win national elections.

NO!

Fred Thompson scored points with me.

When told the only acceptable answer to the globaloney (anthropocentric) warming question was yes or no, he told them he was not going to participate.

Globaloney (anthropocentric) warming is not a yes or no question. I agree the earth is warming, I disagree humans are the cause of it. I disagree hamstringing our economy is going to do anything to solve it. The earth's climate is not a steady state of 1960s climate. I know how all was love and acid in the '60s and how many want to preserve the '60s as much as possible, but 1960s weather is like any other it is fleeting and bound to change.

I am undecided when (other than nos on Ron Paul and Huckabee) it comes to the GOP presidential race. I think McCain is a stronger candidate than what many of my fellow conservatives give him credit for, despite his stands on immigration and socialized campaign financing. Giuliani is a great candidate for homeland security or defense, but I would rather not see him as president.

Is my view petty? I do not think so, I thnk Fred took an issue that the reporter was trying to cast as black and white and refused to treat it as such.

All the talk about how conservatives see the world in stark black and white is just that, talk. The view that conservatives and can not see nuance is a cheap caricature. It seems to me the left veers between impenetrable complexity or the starkest of yes and no. Wiretapping bad guys from Afghanistan is always and everywhere evil there is no downside, detaining the bad guys in Gitmo is is always evil, or Ahmednuttyjihad is engaging in extremely complex rhetorical devices and does not mean what he says.

Fred Thompson, I am not on board with you yet, but a number more of such displays of leadership and courage and I will be with you.

Howard Dean or Rudy Giuliani?

Rudy Giuliani tells conservative voters to get over certain issues.

And then I think our party, our party has to get beyond issues like that [abortion & other such social issues] where we can have people who are very good people who have different views about this, they can all be Republican because our party is going to grow and we’re going to win in 2008 if we’re a party that is characterized for what we are for and not if we’re a party that’s known for what we are against. …

Source: The Corner – Full Rudy Context I want to be for Rudy, but I can not bring myself to do so, especially when I like what I hear Senator McCain saying of late. Rudy Giuliani deserves a cabinet seat as the AG, or Sec of Homeland Security, or Secretary of Defense, but I can not bring myself to support him as President. With another quip like that I will bust out the GIMP and photoshop a photo of him with Howard Dean like I did with Howard Dean and Ann Coulter.

John McCain has his problems too. None of these candidates have me going.

Also, apparently Tommy Thompson was one of two candidates who earned a standing ovation at this event.

What Happened?

Our now infamous and still new congressman Steve Kagen is living up to expectations.

What happened? What led to his winning?

Quite a few different thing mixed together to form the vote soup that put him into office.

A Tsunami of Discontent

Of course, the most widely attributed factor was a national GOP fatigue. This was brought on my many things. The culture of corruption hyped by Nancy and the Dems did its work and I would not say the GOP played the Dem scripted part but no doubt the likes of Foley lent credence to the charges. The DeLay case may have done so too but I would say Tom DeLay is a victim along the lines of the Duke LaCrosse player. He'll have his day in court. The Dems played it very skillfully.

Other points are lack of progress on immigration and in Iraq. Plus every now and then the independent voter gets change in their mind. Never mind asking them what needs change its just change for change's sake.

Don't whine about the MSM. We have proven we can win despite their best efforts.

Dissatisfied & Split Republican Voters

Many of the people I knew who supported John Gard did not do so enthusiastically. John's record in the State Assembly did not show a lot of promise. Looking for progress on TABOR and tax relief we did not find it. Looking for spending restraint we did not find it.

The Honesty Tour which of course gave the impression Terri thought John dishonest did not help. What were her supporters going to do? Vote for a person they spent months trying convince Eighth district voters was dishonest? In fact, quite a few of Terri's supporters went on to work for Steve Kagen's campaign.

Of course, the RPW & RNC did not help the situation by overlooking its own rules to favor John Gard. From the start, I viewed Terri's chances as a long shot. Still, one of the reasons we have primaries is to help strengthen our individual candidates, their staffs, and to give those conservatives who are a part of our grass-roots more of a say. Remember, it is them ultimately we need on our side. The executive is a top-down organization, congress is a bottom-up organization.

I am Not a Democrat, Only Goes So Far

Even in a right-leaning district you need to say more than I am not a Democrat. To be fair, I paid about 0 attention to the advertisements as I was in the Madison area for most of the race (for work) and in any event I watch DirectV's mostly The History Channel, FNC, and sports programming so I missed the deluge of advertisements. Like I need advertising to motivate me, anyway. Any positive TV presentation's to the voters were washed out by the negative ads.

Just like '00, '02, and '04 candidates have to present something about them as well. John Kerry's only attributes were he served in Vietnam and wasn't President Bush.

We had an operative in town in '02 to help with the Scott McCallum campaign. People complained about the negative advertising in that campaign. She told us that negative advertising works, expect more of it. Well, it did not then and did not now.

Negative campaigning will never and should never go away. However, we need to emphasize a candidate's pros over the opponent's negatives.