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With less than a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, it looks like the “come-from-way-behind Rick Santorum boomlet” I joked about a month ago could actually be a reality. And unlike many of the other candidate surges that have caused whiplash in this GOP-primary season, Santorum’s actually makes sense. It still doesn’t mean he [...]
Correction appended, 12:04pm The new internet era of politics has changed a lot of things about the way Presidents go about their daily lives. A stray comment captured on tape can instantly ricochet and cause havoc. Post-9/11 security concerns combined with the ability to find detailed information about virtually any location has made the already challenging [...]
For a swaggering Texas cowboy, Rick Perry certainly does have a serious victim complex. In two different campaign ads released in Iowa this week, the Texas governor defends his faith from enemies named and unnamed. “I’m not ashamed to talk about my faith,” he says in the first spot. “Some liberals say that faith is [...]
It’s been a while since the GOP presidential candidates have engaged in a good old-fashioned round of Who’s the Biggest Islamophobe. Those party-poopers Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney usually sit out the game. But in the wake of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strong showing in early voting for Egyptian parliamentary elections, their opponents will be tempted [...]
While the nation’s Catholic bishops were gathered in Baltimore for their annual meeting this week, Washington Post columnist and former Bush adviser Michael Gerson wrote an op-ed declaring that part of the Obama Administration “is at war with Catholic leaders and Catholic belief.” Echoing the words of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is president [...]
If the whispers about Mitt Romney’s faith have faded, it’s not because conservative evangelicals suddenly feel ashamed about their qualms, but because they’re starting to realize that it’s a lost cause. They find themselves without a strong candidate to stand behind. And that’s remarkable. For three decades, the influence and power of the Religious Right within the GOP has been an article of faith. But if the movement is so powerful, why couldn’t it field a single viable candidate for a presidential election that was supposed to favor Republicans?
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled state senate passed an anti-bullying bill that manages to protect school bullies instead of those they victimize. It accomplishes this impressive feat by allowing students, teachers, and other school employees to claim that “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” justifies their harassment.
Updated 11:07am As this point in the presidential campaign cycle, those of us in the press corps have typed tens of thousands of words about the influential role of evangelicals in selecting the next Republican nominee. Sure, sometimes we use the phrase “social conservatives” to recognize that evangelical Protestants aren’t the only voters who care [...]
Since 2000, more than two-thirds of Americans have told Pew pollsters that they want the President to be a person of faith, which effectively imposes a test of religious belief for candidates. And some voters go even further—often explicitly encouraged by their religious leaders—by reserving their support for candidates who openly profess theological beliefs similar to their own.
Mitt Romney can’t seem to broaden his appeal beyond a quarter of the Republican electorate. Despite his commanding debate performances and general election promise, his support in primary polls has rarely surpassed 26%, which is close to where he peaked in 2008. He does not pick up new backers when support for opponents like Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann fades. What’s going on? It’s the evangelicals, stupid.
