Wow, GZ...you are back and forth, back and forth...So now Obama is finished? You have had Hillary finished, McCain finished...<g>
Speaking of McCain, check this out:
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McCain advisor rips the religious right, calls movement a ’serious problem’
Posted March 19th, 2008 at 11:06 am
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John McCain’s relationship with the religious right has been, shall we say, a little awkward since he denounced the movement’s top leaders as “agents of intolerance” eight years ago. I have a hunch the tensions are about to get a little bit worse.
Yesterday, representatives of the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns spoke before the United Jewish Communities in DC, and McCain sent campaign advisor Lawrence Eagleburger, deputy secretary of State under Bush I, to speak on his behalf.
Thankfully, Eagleburger went off-script when asked about McCain’s relationship with the religious right, a movement United Jewish Communities members are less than fond of.
“On the Christian hard right, I live in Charlottesville now and I can’t tell you I’m surrounded by it,” Eagleburger said. “I must tell you we fought it there, fought hard against it. There’s no question that in the Republican Party it is a serious problem…Among the hard-right conservatives in the Republican Party John McCain was, shall we say, less than enthusiastically received…What you see is what you get. You are not going to see him moving to assuage the concerns of these conservatives.
“The issues that have concerned the far right I don’t see and I don’t expect to see any changes. I know there will be some people in his entourage who will want to advocate for those changes, and again, I don’t believe he will shift on those fundamental issues.”
The WaPo posted a video of Eagleburger’s comments, along with some amusing snark from Dana Milbank.
So, Dobson & Company, are you going to take this lying down?
As it turns out, this is popping up at an especially difficult time for McCain and his relationship with the far-right religious activists that help make up his party’s base.
There’s a little whisper campaign out there among grassroots social conservatives who are concerned that John McCain may want to tamper a little with the language in the Republican Party platform when it comes to marriage. McCain denied it in an interview last Thursday with FOX News but the perception still exists.
McCain is AGAINST an amendment to the U.S. constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. He believes this is better left up to each state. Well, read the latest press release from the Family Research Council’s Senior Vice President Connie Mackey:
“Last Thursday night, Senator McCain tepidly endorsed the GOP’s platform concerning the protection of life and the preservation of marriage. His response to this question as well as his federalist position regarding the definition of marriage leads one to believe that his endorsement is not definitive. Senator McCain needs to clarify that the language concerning the social issues in the Republican Platform is safe and will not be tampered with.
“How could Senator McCain remain in the federalist camp on marriage when a U.S. District Court in Nebraska ruled that the Nebraska marriage amendment violated the U.S. Constitution? Regardless of that court being overruled by the 8th circuit, the fact remains that more than two dozen state amendments are just a few U.S. judges away from being declared unconstitutional. Senator McCain should recognize, as the U.S. Supreme Court did in the Boddie case, that states regulate marriage ‘absent some specific federal constitutional or statutory provision.’ When the reality of successful constitutional challenges threatens the family, the cornerstone of society, then the federal government needs to provide the foundation to guide the states.
This came before Eagleburger called groups like the Family Research Council a “serious problem.”
We’ll see just how angry they are today.
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