Impious since 2006
The Iowa straw poll is a vote by attendees of a fundraiser for the Iowa Republican party and dates all the way back to the pioneering days of 1979.
Earlier this year, a "mystery company" appeared just long enough to donate $1 million remarkably untracable dollars to the Mitt Romney campaign. Almost as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared, leaving hardly a clue that it ever existed in the first place.The company, W Spann LLC, was formed in March by a Boston lawyer who specializes in estate tax planning for “high net worth individuals,” according to corporate records and the lawyer’s bio on her firm’s website.Before you say a ghost or Jesus - I'm just going to say that the LDS Church had a lot of practice with Prop 8 in California and then I'm going to run behind the tree to see if you get what I'm saying?
The corporate records provide no information about the owner of the firm, its address or its type of business.
Six weeks later, W Spann LLC made its million-dollar donation to Restore Our Future — a new so-called “super PAC” started by a group of former Romney political aides to boost the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential bid. It listed its address as being in a midtown Manhattan office building that has no record of such a tenant. (LINK)
A 2007 Pew Center poll showed that 18 percent of Americans associate the religion with polygamy, even though the church has banned the practice since the late 19th century. Six percent said they associated Mormonism with terms like "weird" and "cult-like." The religion is one of the world's fastest-growing, with about 13 million members.
"The church's desire here is just to tell people who have no opinion or a negative opinion of Mormons to say, Look it, we're not a bunch of polygamists that wear weird clothes and have a compound in Texas. That's not us, we're just regular folks," Campbell said.
If I'm not allowed in your church - that's a cult.
Okay, Paulistas, Ron Paul has announced that he is official considering a 2012 run for president, CNN says so.“I don’t expect to be president. I don’t expect to be. That doesn’t mean I won’t run for president, but I am really energized when I think we make inroads … to broaden the outreach on the philosophy I have been talking about for 40 years,” Paul said to CNN.Like Dennis Kucinich, Paul's message is spread by a presidential run. However, the news and attention this approach draws is a discussion on how these two fringe players have no chance at the nomination. There's almost never a detailed look at their policy ideas. Well, maybe at midnight on NPR... But, despite the lack of good coverage, some of their ideas can bleed into the party platform -- and lately the libertarian ideas and values of the Paul brand has been making inroads to policy ideas for the GOP.
Heh heh... he's so funny. Actually, see all those pop shots at the other two candidates and people across the isle?
7. Should have bought Mike Huckabee a bus ticket back to Arkansas, instead he ignored him and it split his support in half allowing John McCain to kick his butt. (agreeing with Time)
1. Could have run less as a social conservative and more as a can-do technocrat.Cap'n's Reasons why Mitt Lost:
2. Could have delivered his religion and faith speech earlier in his campaign.
3. Could have run negative ads against McCain (backlash and ire be darned).
4. Could have recognized that his biggest problem was a perceived lack of humanity, and addressed it with humor, purpose, and authenticity.
5. Could have put his wife and sons more front and center in the campaign. (just kidding) [he did - Cap'n's note]
6. Could have taken a risk and separated himself more from President Bush.
7. Could have identified Huckabee as a genuine threat before it was too late to stop the Arkansan’s momentum — in Iowa and beyond.
8. Could have consistently presented his own personality—disciplined, ambitious, take-charge, impersonal, passionate about his family and his religion—rather than tried to fit himself into a series of established Republican templates.
9. Could have insisted his warring advisers either make peace with each other or quit the campaign.
10. Could have regularly addressed one or two policy issues and/or themes that he really believed in — like change, anti-Washington, the economy.
US Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney addresses supporters at his "Super Tuesday" primary election night rally in Boston, February 5, 2008. Twenty-four of the 50 states are holding nominating contests for one or both parties on "Super Tuesday" for a huge haul of delegates to this summer's conventions that will choose the candidates for the November presidential election.
Rudy wants you all to know to, "Remain calm. All is well!" (listen)
Is it just me - or does this picture just creep you out?
Conservative Christian power-broker Gary Bauer (that one-time presidential hopeful?) turned his attention to a new threat, one social conservative leaders hope will shake their constituents from their apathy about the 2008 presidential race. "The war against Islamofascism is in many respects a 'values issue,'" Bauer wrote. "That may seem like an odd statement at first glance, but, as I have often said, losing Western Civilization to this vicious enemy would be immoral."
From one perspective, branding "radical Islam" as a family values issue is yet another example of the broadening of the evangelical agenda. But next November, it also could energize one of the Republican Party's key voting blocs, much like anti-gay marriage measures did in 2004.
A quick review of Evangelicals railing against militant Islam recently:
• Televangelist Pat Robertson, explaining his endorsement this week of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said "the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists."
• Perhaps the nation's most influential evangelical leader, James Dobson, has spotlighted the issue a dozen times over the past year on his Focus on the Family radio show. Dobson has warned that both Republicans and Democrats need to "wake up" to the dangers of militant Islam.
• At the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in June, evangelical thinker Charles Colson spoke of a "long war" against Islamofascists.
Tensions between evangelical Christianity and Islam are long-standing, too. You know, with the Crusades and the Battle of Tours and such. Oh, and that oil and Israel thing too...
They're also trying to 'grow the business' and you just can't have a Subway and a Quiznos in the same parking lot, for some reason.
U.S. Muslim leaders are critical of the pitched rhetoric and warn of the consequences if evangelical leaders fail to separate militants from the vast majority of Muslims. Or what? Or else they'll bomb them? Uh, what's up with that, guys? You MAY want to consider firing your PR firm. Just some free advice there for ya.
"If you look at the global picture, what these groups are doing is reinforcing the idea that America is in a crusade against Islam, and that this not a war against a group of extremists, but a war between religions," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. "In the long run, it's to the detriment of America's interests and it's pandering to a bloc of voters in a very shortsighted way." Yeah, say what you will Salami, it's a free country, after all, but those people do vote! And they do have a history of voting on the fear ticket.
In meetings with Republican presidential candidates, Christian conservatives are most interested in hearing an acknowledgment of the Islamic threat.
The GOP hopefuls are obliging. Here's your scorecard:
Giuliani — whose preferred term is "Islamic terrorists" — has denounced Democrats for failing to use the phrase. Christian conservative leaders acknowledge their elevation of the issue has contributed to an ironic twist at the top of the polls: Giuliani, the candidate most associated with the war on terrorism, not only won Robertson's endorsement but is polling well among evangelicals despite his two divorces and support for abortion rights and gay rights.
Mitt Romney, who is aggressively courting evangelicals, produced a TV ad in Iowa titled "Jihad," in which he says, "It's this century's nightmare, jihadism — violent, radical Islamic fundamentalism." He's also Mormon, so it's likely that the evangelical support would offset.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council accused former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a favorite of many Christian conservatives, for failing to grasp the threat of radical Islam.
Mike Huckabee has since tried to make amends. In a Republican debate in Orlando, the former Southern Baptist minister labeled Islamofascism "the greatest threat this country's ever faced."
Green, of the Pew Forum, said if radical Islam does become a major campaign issue, it will help the GOP nominee because voters tend to view Republicans as stronger on national security. But he isn't sure it will motivate conservative Christian activists. To be whipped up into some kind of religious fury; a kind of jihad, if you will?
"If you get off into issues of taxes or foreign policy, their eyes glaze over," Green said. "If politics is going to be about those things, they'd rather be back at their churches saving souls."
Another influential conservative activist, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, said it's unclear whether conservative Christian voters understand the threat of radical Islam well enough for it to become a factor in the election.
"We've got a year to make sure they know what's going on," said Weyrich, a Romney supporter. "If they do, probably this will be the motivating issue. If they don't, you can forget it. I think the election goes to Hillary (Clinton)."
I would have thought that Hillary alone would be enough to get the Conservatives into the polling places? Eh, I guess Rove figures he oughta' whip 'em up good, just to make sure.
