Newsweek: Christian Right eyes 2012 candidates
Wow. If this is the best the GOP can look to in 2012, things are going to be bleak.
The two potential contenders with the most grassroots support are Palin and Huckabee. Palin played a significant role in the recent midterm cycle, triggering surges of buzz and donations every time she tweeted her endorsement of a particular candidate (though her picks had mixed success). For his part, Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, receives rapturous receptions at gatherings of the faithful, like the annual Values Voter Summit. Both have also benefited from their TV gigs—he with his talk show on Fox News Channel, and she with her regular appearances on the network, as well as her reality show on TLC. Yet, in addition to the drawbacks cited above, each has been criticized for running ineffectual, sometimes chaotic, organizations. Huckabee’s 2008 campaign apparatus proved incapable of capitalizing on the wave of popular support he received. Though he won the Iowa caucuses, he failed to sustain that momentum and, two months later, withdrew.
By contrast, two other likely candidates—Romney and Gingrich—may be less popular, but they are known for their organizational muscle. Romney has set up an elaborate network of state and federal political-action committees. And Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership group has been especially aggressive in reaching out to Christian conservatives. Its chairman, Jim Garlow, is a pastor who played a crucial role in winning passage of California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage. Yet Romney and Gingrich have their own drawbacks, too. Not only did Romney, when he was Massachusetts governor, sign into law something that looks an awful lot like Obama’s health-care reform (something most conservatives, social and fiscal, consider a government takeover of the medical system); he also continues to generate wariness among some right-wing Christians for his past support of abortion rights and for his Mormon faith. Meanwhile, Gingrich, though admired for his intellect, fails to arouse passion. He’s “kind of the professor of the conservative movement,” says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “But I do not get a sense of a groundswell of support for him.”
Palin would be a gift-wrapped second term for Obama.
Huckabee would appeal to many of Palin’s people, but he’s a far-right theocrat, and that doesn’t play well with independents or moderates.
Romney doesn’t stand a chance of getting out of the primaries because he’s a Mormon and the evangelicals consider Mormons as barely a half-step above Satanists. Plus, Romneycare kills him with the non-evangelicals.
Gingrich? LOL. The less said, the better.
However, things don’t look better even if you dig deeper:
But, a lesser known batch of possible candidates might provide a better fit for Christian voters: Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota and an evangelical; Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who’s Catholic and a steadfast social conservative; Mike Pence, an Indiana congressman who won this year’s straw poll at the Values Voter Summit; and John Thune, a U.S. senator from South Dakota who’s evangelical and is considered a rising GOP star. All would likely sit well with the religious right, yet for now, they lack widespread name recognition.
Pawlenty was considered a good shot for the VP slot in 2008 but lost it to Palin because he lacked ladyparts. Santorum’s a joke and a Dan Savage meme. Pence is a gold standard nutjob. I don’t know anything about Thune, but considering that candidates like Palin and O’Donnell are also “rising GOP stars” who are evangelicals, I’m not all that sure I want to know.
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