What's new in the neighborhood? A coming W.alues V.oters split
After years of propping up W., the Family Research Council inAction crowd apparently threw their weight behind Huckabee and/or Romney.
A quote from AU's Barry Lynn: “This may be the biggest collection of theocrats in one room since the Salem Witch Trials.”
But that misses what the conference actually revealed, a brewing fight between the grassroots and pundit leaders.
Coming out of the con, Gov. Huckabee was the news as Brody notes, but Marc Ambinder tackles the issue that's been bugging some folks: with all the socon values Arkansas Huck embraces, why is there such tepid support. Marc quote's a Redstate poster who intimates something that anyone watching the nonexistent Christian right support for SCHIP can see:
"Even Tony Perkins, the head of FRC, said he hoped the social conservative candidate would be palatable to the fiscal conservatives out there. Huckabee is not."
Clearly for the religious right, the Club for Growth sets the monetary values.
And this brewing fight between right elites and the rank-and-file is exactly what Amy Sullivan sees a-comin':
the real struggle in the 2008 Republican primaries will be not between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney or social conservatives and fiscal conservatives but between Christian Right leaders and the conservatives in the pews.
Why? In part because the leadership has become rich, and increased in good relationships with folks like Norquist.
The New Republic's Noam add a Machiavellian layer:
I'd add that social conservative leaders generally prefer to support mainstream, front-running candidates because mainstream front-runners don't usually need much help winning elections. And when they do win, they can turn around and claim to have put them over the top. Low risk, high reward, in other words. But more marginal candidates like Huckabee need a lot of help winning, probably significantly more so than the elites can deliver. Worse, if you get behind a Huckabee and he comes up short, it exposes your movement as relatively powerless. And, of course, even if he wins you can't really take credit. So the crass calculation here is the opposite: high risk, low reward.
For example, Justin's Thoughts "Christian. Conservative. Patriotic." who was live blogging the conference and had this to say after Huckabee spoke:
As a evangelical Christian, I loved everything he said. The Governor didn't make a political speech. It sounded much like a sermon. . . .This man needs our support. I really believe that the resurgence of Mike Huckabee is an act of Providence.
Can't argue W.ith that, as they say.
Comments
If Dan's live blogging didn't sufficiently satisfy your curiosity about what the Pres. candidates were really saying to the "values voters" FRC just put up the transcripts: http://www.frcblog.com/2007/10/washington_briefing_transcript.html
Posted by: Beth | October 23, 2007 09:49 AM
Any word out there on the follow-up meeting of the crowd that floated the thought balloon about the third party candidate?
I have to say that I'm not convinced the real debate is between the national religious leaders and the pews...I still see the far larger stakes as between Guilani and the conservative wing of the party. That fight will give some insight into whether Bush post-2000 has permanently moved the party to the right. A Huck win wouldn't tell us as much on that score.
Posted by: Dbuck | October 23, 2007 10:36 AM
The dynamic behind this split is also suggested in Michael Lindsay's new book, Faith In The Halls of Power, which examines the differences between "cosmopolitan evangelicals" and "populist evangelicals." The cosmos are clearly losing hold of the fold. Way to string it all together Alex.
Posted by: Dan | October 23, 2007 10:37 AM
Michael Lou posted at the NYT Caucus blog that the follow up group didn't make any decisions save for calling for a "national week of prayer" around Thanksgiving.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/take-your-time-pick-your-candidate/
Posted by: Beth | October 23, 2007 10:50 AM
I think Amy and Alex, maybe even Michelle Cottle are missing a key point about Huckabee.
It is not fair as Barry Lynn does to call him a theocrat.
Just because he has convictions you and I don't share does not make him a theocrat.
Huckabee has more virtue than his fellow Arkansan Southern Baptist Ronnie Floyd, the loser in last year's race for SBC presidency. And Floyd and Huckabee have some distinctions.
The story is exploring it all with Richard Land, and how Floyd and Land's politics differ from HBee and other conservatives in the SBC, including the late Harry Dent's daughter Ginny Brant.
It is a good think Randy Brinson is with us.
But the list I name at first of this comment have a lot to learn from Brinson and myself about the nuances of Baptist politicians in the South.
At this point, though I differ with him, I got lot more respect for Huckabee, than I do for Karl Roves minions Ronnie Floyd and Richard Land
Posted by: Stephen Fox | October 23, 2007 05:22 PM
Stephen,
Perhaps I need to make it more clear in my roundup, but I agree with you that Barry gets Values Voters wrong by making them monolithic "theocrats." In fact, they are not.
And Dan's post on Robertson adds to the evidence that while the religious right leadership is hedging its bets and trying to calculate on a candidate, the rank-and-file are increasingly ready to go with Huckabee.
If you listen carefully to Robertson's banter in the CBN clip, it's pretty clear that he's not unsympathetic to Giuliani.
Posted by: Alexander | October 23, 2007 06:06 PM
Alex:
Before I saw your reply, I had considered there was I sense I was speaking to something you never said in the first place.
Even so, it would be great if we could find a way, a strategic time to bring this discussion to Upstate South Carolina before the South Carolina Primary with the likes of Beaufort Mayer Bill Rauch's whose book on the 2000 SC Prez primary is a must read for you; and Republicans of faith the likes of Ginny Brant, and others; even the President of the Southern Baptist Convention, Frank Page.
Furman has Baptist roots and Wofford just thirty miles away is the alma mater of longtime Duke Chaplain Willimon; also Yale Div.
Bring it there for maybe a two session discussion with as many of the Prez candidates we could lure.
Though I do not represent them I challenge you and the network of this site to take a good look at robert parham of ethicsdaily.com; his Golden Rule DVD I recently previewed in audience with panel of Bama's promising Congressman Artur Davis.....see if we can bring the likes of Randy Brinson and the above to SC for strong discussion where it most strategically matters; in the heart of Richard Land and Bob Jones Babdissland.
See if Parham's DVD could help us frame the discussion there.
Maybe we could make the ghost of Karl Rove Wince.
Posted by: Stephen Fox | October 23, 2007 07:58 PM
Dan and Alex especially, et.al:
Click on my name at the end of this post and it should take you to a remarkable analysis of the SBC prez election of June 2006 that accents the differences between Richard Land and Mike Huckabee.
Land's horse in that race was Ronnie Floyd, the man Mike Huckabee defeated for Ark Bap President in 1988 in a nasty race among fundamentalists.
You may think it Baptist nit picking, but goes a long way in explaining Land's reservations about Huckabee; and if pursued will help unvail the true nature of Rovism that has infected the underbelly of SBC politics intramurally and secularly.
Michelle Cottle of TNR is kinda getting the picture, and many of you at this site are picking up on it as well.
Posted by: Stephen Fox | October 25, 2007 07:19 PM