How is wooing Evangelicals any different than wooing the Confederate Flag Decal Truck guys?

[beaconess]

Isn't Barack Obama doing just what Howard Dean said he wanted to do - convince people who vote Republican that it's really in their interest to vote Democratic?

[Bluebear]

1. Dean never invited racist decal guys to give a hate sermon at his fundraisers.

Obama hired McClurkin to emcee his fundraiser and end his concert with a half hour sermon sgainst gays.

[beaconess]

10. So, you don't have a problem with wooing Evangelicals -

you just don't like HOW he's doing it? Or, to be accurate, you don't like ONE of the things that occurred while he was doing it? (Since he didn't hire McClurkin to do anything and McClurkin didn't emcee anything - to be accurate.)

[Bluebear]

12. I beg your pardon? He DID hire McClurkin and McClurkin DID emcee the "change" concert.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/view.bg?articleid=1041124

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A Grammy-winning singer whose role in a Barack Obama campaign event riled gay activists served as master of ceremonies of a gospel concert promoting the Democratic presidential hopeful last night.

“We’re here,” Donnie McClurkin told a cheering crowd. “We’re here and we’re glad we’re here.”

McClurkin, who has angered gay rights groups by saying homosexuality is a choice, told the crowd the musical acts were there “in the name of unity” and “in the name of change.”

[VarnettaTuckpocket]

20. McClurkin used the platform to mock gay activists

“We’re here,” Donnie McClurkin told a cheering crowd. “We’re here and we’re glad we’re here.”

I just wanted to point out that this is McClurkin mocking the gay activist chant "We're here, we're queer, get used to it." Giving the finger to people fighting for equal rights for gays. At a fund raiser for a Democratic presidential candidate, outrageous!

[Bluebear]

22. Thank you, and welcome to DU. You will find Obama does nothing wrong for a great number. nt

[Bluebear]

23. :chirp chirp:

[NMMNG]

15. I don't like the fact that his lips have been constantly attached to their butts

for a good long time now. My faith, blah blah, Kingdom on earth, blah blah, Prayerful decisions, blah blah, Homophobepalooza, etc, etc. When does plain old politics figure in to this--or does it? Why is it that religion has to be infused into everything?

What I don't like is that they have to be constantly wooed, or else. This is an election for president, not priest/pope/pastor.

[Guaranteed]

32. But he DID go on the 700 Club. And people got pissed at HIM for

that, too.

I guess folks are consistent, at least.

[sandnsea]

2. He's confronting them

Telling Christians that praying women have abortions isn't exactly wooing anybody. Telling the black religious community they have to stop being homophobic, isn't wooing anybody. Telling right wing radio haters that they aren't Christians isn't wooing anybody either.

Yes, he's going into the religious communities, but not to tip-toe around the issues and avoid offending them at any cost.

[Armstead]

3. That's fine as long as....

...he doesn't toss the rest of us out of the bus.

I know what Dean meant, and I basically agreed with it. The "culture wars" is just a phony way to divide and conquer the population, so that they get distracted from the real issues of money and power.

Dean was saying that he wanted to try to convince the members of the economically marginalized class of whites that they should focus on the issues that are in the common interest for their own sake, instead of focusing on bigotry and side issues like guns. (What good are gun rights if you can't afford one?)

If Obama can get through to the Christian Right politically, more power to him. Just as long as he doesn;t sacrifice either our principles or try to dilute the line between Church and State.

[Bluebear]

4. 'Just as long as he doesn;t sacrifice either our principles'

Too late, as far as I am concerned.

[theredpen]

5. Two Words: Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter is an Evangelical Christian. Is wooing the votes of people like Jimmy Carter a crime now?

[Colobo]

11. Thank you.

[Adelante]

16. And evangelicals who are not bigots

Are throwing off the fundies. This is one of those moments in time if we have the eyes to see.

The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”

snip

“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” said Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World and an informal adviser to George W. Bush when he was governor. “To some extent — we have to see how much — the Republicans have blown it. That opportunity to lock up that constituency has vanished. The ball now really is in the Democrats’ court.”

snip

Warren, pastor of the Saddleback church in Lake Forest, Calif., is the author of the best seller “The Purpose Driven Life.” His church has sold materials to thousands of other churches for “campaigns” called 40 Days of Purpose and, more recently, 40 Days of Community. If more Christians worked to alleviate needs in their local communities, he suggests in the church’s promotional materials, “the church would become known more for the love it shows than for what it is against” a thinly veiled dig at the conservative Christian “culture war.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.html?pagewanted=1

[cboy4]

25. He's not wooing the votes of people like Jimmy

Carter.

He's pandering to people who are unlike Jimmy Carter....the haters who are part of that 700 Club, who are not only opposed to gay civil liberties, but also believe gay people have psychiatric problems and need to be cured, or even worse, are going to hell.

Those people cannot be reasoned with.

But nice try bringing up Carter's name.

[theredpen]

38. You're wrong

Those people cannot be reasoned with.

Thankyou for sharing your stereotypes, but I know from personal experience that you are wrong.

[puebloknot]

37. Jimmy Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention because...

...he didn't like their position on a lot of things. Carter is one evangelical I can listen to without wanting to curl up in the fetal position out of fear for my country, and my freedom.

[NMMNG]

6. Dean didn't hire Prussian Blue to perform for his campaign fundraiser.

:shrug:

[Bluebear]

7. Oh, you are just an Obama basher. And a hater.

Or gay, or an atheist, or a woman. :silly:

[NMMNG]

13. Don't forget vegetarian

I'd be so much calmer if I'd just eat a nice, juicy steak. :P

[riqster]

27. What's worse is that you make sense

That is just....so....wrong! :silly:

[sendero]

8. Did Dean..

.... put David Duke on a stage and let him spout his bullshit?

you are really thick if you don't see that your analogy is ridiculous. God I'm tired of this absurd non-point, which has the logical value of the typical freeper assertion.

[saltpoint]

9. You make a pitch to all audiences because their children and grandchildren

need and deserve health care and a sound education the same as ours do.

"We the people... ...in order to form a more perfect union..." etc.

[OHdem10]

14. Is it really wooing Evangelicals or is it letting Americans

know Democrats are Christians too????

Many Democrats are sick and tired of GOP referring to us
as Godless.

There are more people of faith in Democratic Party than
not.

This in no way means I want my Religion pushed on others.
It means I will not permit the GOP to think they have the
corner on God.

The GOP refers to Dems as Godless to discourage people from
even looking into the Democratic Party.

[NMMNG]

19. Thereby falling for the Repugs bullshit

That politics must be infused with religion. Church and State are supposed to be separate. Bushco is a good enough example of what results from mixing the two too much. Human rights fall by the wayside and we're all in grave danger.

[sandnsea]

24. How do you confront that

and all the other stuff the right blathers about, if you don't go right at them and tell them where they're wrong. We've been pushing separation of church and state for 20 years - they continue to flourish. We're going to have to confront both their wrong-headed beliefs AND making them law, which is exactly what Obama is doing.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. the answer to your query hasn't changed any since the first several times this was asked

Howard Dean did not say we need to reach out to the Confederate flag crowd on the Confederate flag.

Obama's approach would be to twist language around to suggest that we can find common ground with those folks on the Confederate flag.

I am sure Howard Dean could have reached out to the Confederate flag crowd by accepting the rhetorical formulation, "Heritage, not Hate."

But doing so would cause new divisions, not heal old ones. Perhaps Senator Obama will someday understand that distinction.

You do not reach out to people by feigning agreement, or insinuating like-mindedness, on malignant points of view.

[Captain Angry]

18. Evangelicals have a lot more disposable income than

the truck guys.

:-P

[NMMNG]

21. So let's just open some more Christian Book/Gift Stores then

And maybe make some more movies for them. That's much better than working to give them political control of the nation--real or perceived.

;-)

[Captain Angry]

29. We just need a new anti-porn crusade and they'll all get distracted. n/t

[Kucinich4America]

26. What Howard Dean was saying was proven correct in 2006

It was the very same 50 state strategy which won the election. Dean's point was that Democrats on the ground in any given state know better how to campaign on their home turf than a bunch of hack DLC "consultants" inside the Beltway.

[polichick]

28. It's really not wooing anyone as much as it is...

...painting a picture of Democrats that's different from the stereotypical one they've been sold.

[eridani]

30. It's how you do it that is in question here

You bond with them over common concerns about education, health care, etc. You do NOT under any circumstances pander to bigotry.

[mzmolly]

31. Dean said we need to reach out to "evangelicals" as well.

I think Obama is doing what we need to do as a Party. We need to reach out and convince people of all political stripes to vote in their own best interst and not in the interest of corporations who use fear and bigotry in order to gain complance. (Pardon the run on sentence.) ;)

[ellisonz]

42. And he was right!

[1932]

33. There are lots of liberals who go to church. Not sure how many liberals are nostalgic about the con-

federacy.

[PurityOfEssence]

34. Confederates only really descriminated against one group and wanted to keep what they had...

Evangelicals marginalize and disenfranchise all sorts of "different" people, and consider it their right to conquer the world.

[beaconess]

39. Confederates ONLY discriminated against one group of people?

Maybe you should go back and read up on your history.

Oh - and their form of "discrimination" against "one group of people" went considerably farther than what most evangelicals are proposing today. But since it was against only "one group of people," maybe it doesn't count.

[AtomicKitten]

35. Obama is out there campaigning to win.

The object of the game is to get more votes. Obama is talking to everyone, casting a wide net, intending to do just that.

Sometimes my son and I just laugh at all the bullshit on these boards. People talk about the candidates like they raped their sister's dog. It's unreal.

After seven years of this epic disaster of an administration, I don't give a rat's ass what our candidate does (as long as it is legal and not kamikaze politics) as long as they end up beating the ever lovin' crap out of the Republican empty suit in about a year.

[provis99]

36. they are two different cases

at least with the Confederate truck guys, you might be able to set them down and reason with them, maybe by explaining how their support for the Democrats will benefit them and their group (poverty alleviation, for example). But for these true evangelical believers who take their marching orders from God, its pointless to reason with them, if they believe what they would be supporting is against God. You can at least argue with an ordinary bigot, but how can you argue against God? Trying to sway conservative evangelicals is completely pointless.

[beaconess]

40. pssst - lots of those Confederate truck guys ARE evangelicals

In fact, the evangelical movement and the confederate/massive resistance movement arose out of the same time, place and circumstances.

And there's a reason the Klan burns crosses.

How sad that the confederate decal crowd has been virtually absolved by some folks - even so-called liberals - of their true heritage, mission and purpose.

[Name removed]

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