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August 11, 2008 | 5:01 pm

John McCain’s Jesus problem

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo

Have you heard? John McCain is going to church again.

Yep, his campaign wants you—conservative Christian voter—to know that he’s really a religious man. They know he’s uncomfortable talking about God, that he’s more fluent in the language of the non-God-fearing crowd, that he’s given aging Christian right leaders the heebie jeebies. And the best way to solve these campaign ills, they assume, is to publicly plop his tochis in a church pew.

And you wonder why I am tired of the exploitation of religion for political purposes?

Bring the Pain McCain, though, likely is just as frustrated by the marriage. Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone’s politics writer, observed McCain one Sunday at North Phoenix Baptist Church for an article about the Republican nominee’s presidential dilemma.

As I’ve mentioned before, Taibbi is not the most astute of conservative Christian observers, mainly, I suspect, because he allows his perception to be overly clouded by his deep disdain for their politics. But his article offers some good insights into why McCain is struggling so seriously in his attempts to court the evangelical voters that, much more than four years ago, appear willing to swing for the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama.

Just a warning: You’ve got to wade through some stomach-wrenching turns of phrase. I’ve posted a (fairly) clean snippet after the jump:

The real problem here might be that McCain’s stubborn refusal to pull a full-court Huckabee on the God front has coincided with (a) an impending economic catastrophe and (b) statements by one of his closest advisers, Phil Gramm, to the effect that America is in a “mental recession” and is a “nation of whiners.” As a result, McCain now has the daunting task of somehow keeping voters in economically hard-hit evangelical regions mesmerized by Bible-humping, gay-bashing bullsh—, despite the fact that he only started going to church regularly a month ago and as recently as a year ago was actually saying gay people are human beings. If he doesn’t, who knows — people might actually start voting according to their economic interests, which would be disastrous for a Republican Party that has duped America’s white underclass for decades, thanks to Christian conservatism.

But that’s only if McCain keeps up his present habit of not playing the God card on the stump. “If the contrast between the candidates on social issues is heightened enough, then those evangelical voters will eventually come back on board,” says James Gimpel, a professor of government at the University of Maryland who tracks voter demographics in real time for a project called Patchwork Nation. The project recently found that counties with large populations of Christian evangelicals have been hit especially hard by high gas prices and foreclosures, creating greater anxiety leading up to the election.

Photo
McCain with John Hagee

Gimpel concedes, however, that McCain is not doing a whole lot right now to “heighten” that contrast. “Yeah, he doesn’t seem very interested in campaigning on those social issues,” he says. “Unless he turns it around or gets surrogates to make that case for him, some evangelicals might sit it out.”

McCain is so bad at this game that when it came time for him to pick an evangelical date for the prom, he chose the one preacher crazy enough to make even trailer-dwelling Southerners nervous — John Hagee, a beach-ball-shaped apocalypse merchant whose views on Catholicism would raise eyebrows at a Klan meeting. Classic McCain: He kicks off his presidential run in 2000 by insulting North American vote-generating champion Jerry Falwell, then heads into 2008 with his arms wrapped around an obscure televangelist whose only electoral pull is in the next world. As a result, the most influential leaders on the Christian right are keeping their distance. “Uh, no,” says a spokesman for Focus on the Family, when I ask if Dobson has changed his mind about McCain, even with Obama on the ticket. “He hasn’t changed his mind. No way.”

Based on what Dobson said on the radio July 20—“I never thought I would hear myself saying this ... While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.”—it appears he may be about to change his vote, even though he hasn’t yet. The rest of Taibbi’s article can be read here.

12 Comments — Leave your comment

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I posted this on the other end of your link. It works ok there but I meant to put it here.

The truth is that neither of these putative candidates excites evangelicals (or the center in general). It would not be surprising to see a low turnout with a survey showing that more than half the country went to sleep not knowing or caring who won. The Bush evangelicals will tilt for McCain, and the Carter evangelicals will tilt for Obama. It’s like good cholesterol vs. bad cholesterol. That’s all I can fortell for now.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 8/11/08 at 5:52 pm

The Heebie Jeebies, eh?

Comment by The Web Guy on 8/11/08 at 6:24 pm

I couldn’t help but wonder… Heebie Jeebies is cited by several etymological sources as innocent of Hebraic association… but wait!

http://www.amazon.com/Heebie-Jeebies-CBGBs-Secret-History-Jewish/dp/155652613X
The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk

On my wavelength, yesss!

Comment by Ben Plonie on 8/11/08 at 6:46 pm

check spam @#$%^&*

Comment by Ben Plonie on 8/11/08 at 6:47 pm

I wish I could explain why someone who comments as frequently as you still gets sucked up occasionally by the spam filter. It must be anti-Semitic.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 8/11/08 at 6:57 pm

Dear American Citizens and the Press

As a concerned citizen, I consider it is my duty to bring following message to you all.
 
“We the citizens of the United States of America have the ultimate responsibility to elect the ” Right Candidate” to lead our nation, out of our huge present and future internal and external challenges as well as opportunities. This is to prevent depression and isolation in-spite of being the only superpower in the world morally, democratically, economically, and militarily.

We need to consider the “critical qualities and characteristics” of our presumptive presidential nominees at the time we vote.

In my personal and professional opinion the critical considerations are as under:


1. Calm, cool, and collected ” temper ” [ Presidential Temperament ].
2. Sound and sustained “Judgment and Caliber”.
3. “Thought-fullness and togetherness” of purpose and positions.
4. Minimum “ex-poser and exploitation” around “Washington and Washington insiders”.
5. Renewed ” Vigor and Vision ” for our Great-grand Nation.
6. Foreign policy based on ” American Values, Virtuous, Vastness”.

Stay informed, stay involved, and stay engaged. Do not allow some partisan media, pundits, pollsters, and perpetual political opinion makers effect your vote in the wrong direction.

Don’t be effected and duped by “Psychological Terrorism” that is directed at common American people without their full consent and awareness.

Long live U.S.A and its diverse but democratic people.

Col. A.M. Khajawall [Ret] MD., ABFM., ABDA.
Colonel, USAR/MC Combat Stress Control[Ret], Disabled American Veteran and Iraq Freedom team.


PS: McCain will be disaster for us.

Comment by COL> A>M.Khajawall [Ret] on 8/11/08 at 7:04 pm

You’re not the only vet who thinks McCain would be a disaster for America and the world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

Comment by The Web Guy on 8/11/08 at 7:11 pm

Of course gay people are human beings. You may check this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDjtVS9iaDA.

Comment by Corelily on 8/11/08 at 10:42 pm

For Khajawall
We don’t have the luxury of voting for your dating checklist. Our system has produced two candidates, we have to choose the better or the least bad. That’s the way it is.

To Web Guy
Cheap shot. In other words, it is all up to America to choose war or peace. I have news for you - American cities are targeted no matter what we do, no matter whom we elect. You have no clue about the mentality of our enemies. They have no right. They have no grievance. They have no entitlement. Scott Ritter is no prophet to predict that. Obama will be no protection against that. When Obama runs out of script he’s gonna look like Steve Urkel.

It was definitely greed and ambition and hubris that armed and allowed arming of evil savages and political retards with WMD, and it was definitely an unpopular choice to engage them and try to neutralize them. But that was only one goal of the war. The others were regime change (mission accomplished) and democracy (the horse has been brought to the water, whether or not he drinks).

Iraq was a bad idea from the beginning. It should be busted up into
1) Shiastan (or Iranistan)
2) Sunnistan (Jihadistan)
3) Kurdistan, with all the oil
4) Palistan - to ship all the phony malcontents and troublemakers out of Gaza and Judea and away from bugging Israel to form their haha secular democracy.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 8/11/08 at 10:44 pm

Corelily
Are you saying that one of the candidates is more supportive of the bisexual community than the other? Whom would that be and why?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 8/11/08 at 11:14 pm

THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRATIC NATION, IT IS A REPUBLIC!!!!!!!!!!

Comment by Marie on 9/05/08 at 12:02 am

“I pleadge allieance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands…” By George you’re right! It IS a republic!

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/05/08 at 12:21 am

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