The FundamentaList (No. 62)

[Joanne98]

This week in the religious right: Conservatives fight for the RNC chair, Focus on the Family fears the new Congress, and has Obama "defanged" the religious right?

Sarah Posner | January 7, 2009

1. Religious Right Power Brokers Endorse Ken Blackwell for RNC Chair

Some of the leading figures in the Christian right, including honchos James Dobson and Tony Perkins, joined hands through the Council for National Policy's political advocacy arm, CNP Action, to endorse former Ohio secretary of state and failed 2006 gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell to chair the Republican National Committee.

Other endorsers include Stuart Epperson, a contributor to Blackwell's 2006 campaign and chair of Salem Communications Corporation, the Christian radio network on which Blackwell has been a political commentator; Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist icon who just this week blamed the increased number of young evangelicals voting Democratic in 2008 on public education and Bill Ayers; Tim LaHaye, whose Left Behind series has sold nearly twice as many copies as Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life; and Colin Hanna, a rising star out of Pennsylvania whose organization, Let Freedom Ring, is aimed at persuading moderate voters that religious-right positions are not so extreme after all.

Schlafly, who played a key role in swaying Republican leaders away from backing Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential candidacy, is seen as wielding significant influence over RNC members who will vote on the new chair at the end of the month. Huckabee's former campaign manager, Chip Saltsman, who mailed committee members a CD of the Rush Limbaugh musical favorite, "Barack the Magic Negro," is also contending for RNC chair. Other candidates include Mike Duncan, the current chair; Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and current chair of GOPAC, the Republican Party's political-action committee; and state-level party chairs Katon Dawson of South Carolina, who recently resigned his membership from a segregated country club, and Saul Anuzis of Michigan.

The candidates participated in a dull debate Monday at the National Press Club, sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform and moderated by its president, Grover Norquist. The event was short on questions about religious-right topics -- only in a lightning round were the participants asked if they were pro-life -- and heavy on questions about rebuilding the grass roots, using social networking, and expanding beyond the party's base of white voters. Blackwell, who is black, called for a "shareholder revolt" against the "corporate model" of the RNC, which he charged "has outlived its usefulness ... we have to build coalitions, and we have to do this by flattening the RNC and pushing responsibility outside of the Beltway ... the RNC must no longer be a social club but a flagship organization in this country."

All that anti-Beltway, grass-roots-revolution talk sounded downright Huckabee-esque. A bit ironic, perhaps, as Huckabee has chosen to work from outside the RNC to build his own political action committee, with a national volunteer team that has a presence in every county in America.

2. Blackwell's Religious-Right Ties

Continued>>>
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fundamentalist_010709