Evangelical Christians

Rick Santorum Reveals His True Self: Moral, Religious Zealot Out To Promote Social Controls!

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Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has now thrown down the gauntlet, and only dimwitted Americans, or those who totally agree with him, could back him for President.

Santorum has now said he does not wish to deal with the issue of jobs, inflation, gasoline prices, and other economic issues!

Why? Because, according to him, the issue is morality, overcoming contraception, abortion, gay rights, and pornography!

Rick wants to control the social, private lives of all of us, and force Puritanical standards on all Americans, all through his devoutly Catholic religious beliefs, and with the backing of evangelical Christians who only care about Santorum’s “social agenda”!

Santorum comes the closest to being a theocrat of any modern Presidential candidate, with the closest to him being William Jennings Bryan, who ran as the Democratic nominee in 1896, 1900, and 1908. But even Bryan, although a convinced evangelical Christian, advocated political, social and economic reforms that became the Progressive movement, ushering in ideas that became part of the agenda of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt over time.

Santorum has no such desires, as he wants government out of our lives, EXCEPT for social and privacy areas.

Santorum wants to shape all of us in the name of his brand of morality and religious fanaticism!

This makes Santorum a very dangerous man, a totalitarian minded person, who would interfere with the personal rights of those who disagree with him, putting the heavy hand of government on the people, even though he condemns big government in theory.

Santorum makes other Republicans cringe, as well as Democrats, and every effort must be made to prevent his nomination, as one can never be certain if times get difficult in the next seven months, that this moral censor might not be elected President in November!

Rick Santorum And Barry Goldwater Would NOT Be Friends!

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Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was the MOST right wing nominee for President we have ever had, and lost in a massive landslide to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Barry Goldwater was an economic conservative, who was against the New Deal, wishing Robert Taft, the earlier conservative Republican leader, had become President, because he wished to repeal the New Deal, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower institutionalized the New Deal as the first Republican President since Herbert Hoover. Goldwater wished to make Social Security voluntary, rather than required as part of the tax collection, which it had been for a quarter century.

Barry Goldwater was also a foreign policy conservative, who believed in ultimate confrontation with the Soviet Union and any foreign enemy, including potential use of nuclear weapons.

Barry Goldwater appealed to states rights advocates, and although supportive of the broad concept of civil rights for African Americans, he criticized the civil rights movement and its leaders, and accepted the backing of Southern segregationists.

BUT with all of his faults, one thing Barry Goldwater was NOT–a social conservative a la former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

Barry Goldwater was NOT a believer in the role of religion in government, and was a major critic in later years of the Christian Coalition, and the Moral Majority, led by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and other evangelical Christian ministers.

Barry Goldwater never believed it was the business of government to interfere in private life of individuals and their families, so did not support the Pro Life Movement against abortion rights for women.

Barry Goldwater never believed it was anyone’s business to condemn or vilify people because of their sexual orientation, and so supported the rights of gay men and women.

Barry Goldwater believed that all Americans should be allowed to serve in the military, so was against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” interfering with the right of gay men and women to serve our nation, asserting that he did not care what one’s sexual orientation was, as long as he or she could “shoot straight!”

Barry Goldwater would have been mortified to see a candidate who condemned sexual relations except for procreation purposes, and to observe a candidate speak out against the use of contraception by couples for their family planning and the health and welfare of women.

It is clear that were Barry Goldwater alive and active today, he would repudiate Rick Santorum as a social totalitarian, an extremist, a dangerous man to give power to, as there is nothing worse than a “Puritan” trying to promote morality by force!

Conclusion: Barry Goldwater and Rick Santorum would NOT be friends!

Barry Goldwater came across as whacky, extreme, untrustworthy to be our President, and he often “shot from the lip”, getting himself into major troubles that could be exploited by Democrats and President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. IF Rick Santorum ends up as the GOP nominee in 2012, the same weaknesses will get him in major troubles that could be exploited by the Democrats and President Barack Obama!

An African American Vs. A Mormon: The Quandary For The “Old Confederate” South

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Mitt Romney was dealt a walloping defeat last night in both Alabama and Mississippi, gaining only about 30 percent of the vote against his two competitors–winner Rick Santorum and runner up Newt Gingrich.

With all that, Romney still has twice the delegates of Santorum and three times the delegates of Gingrich, and is still seen as the likely nominee, although it may end up as a battle at the August Tampa Republican National Convention.

The problem is that Romney is perceived, particularly in the South, as not conservative enough, and overwhelming numbers of conservatives, Tea Party activists, and Evangelical Christians do not like, and were unwilling to support him. Romney has lost not just Alabama and Mississippi and Tennessee to Santorum, but also South Carolina and Georgia to Gingrich. The only “Old Confederate” Southern states he has won are Florida, which is unique in many respects, and Virginia, where he had only the competition of Ron Paul. Romney is not expected to win North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, or Texas, when those states vote in their primaries.

So the question arises: Can Mitt Romney, if he is the Republican nominee for President, carry the “Old Confederate” South? Will the conservatives, Tea Party, and Evangelical Christians get out there and organize and vote for him over Barack Obama?

Truthfully, low voter turnout, due to lack of enthusiasm, COULD cost Romney the election, if African Americans and Hispanics and Latinos come out in large numbers to vote, and are not prevented from voting by new voter ID laws.

These Republican groups will also have on their mind the reality that Mitt Romney is a Mormon, seen as a cult and non Christian by many Bible Belt types.

Is that worse than being an African American? In this unusual circumstance, an African American vs. a Mormon, an extremely unusual circumstance, who can honestly say what would happen?

The suspicion is that Obama could hold on in the states he won last time–Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, but also would have a shot at winning Georgia and even Texas, if there is a low GOP voter turnout, and if Hispanics and Latinos, growing numbers in both states, vote in high percentages for Obama, again without prevention by Voter ID laws designed to cut their vote, as well as that of African Americans.

No matter how much other Southern states may feel that the Mormon Church is unacceptable, to believe that Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas would vote for an African American, would require one to hallucinate!

The good thing is that the five states Obama could win have 111 electoral votes, while the other six states certain to vote Republican have only 49 electoral votes!

Were Obama to win more than two thirds of the electoral votes of the “Old Confederate” South, that would be an amazing development and would insure, all by itself, that Obama would win an overwhelming electoral vote victory in November 2012!

Hillary Clinton At Women In The World Summit: Women Must Not Let Men Control Their Destiny!

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a passionate address at the Women In The World Summit in New York City this weekend, an event hosted by Newsweek and the Daily Beast.

Prominent, as well as not so prominent, women attended, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, actresses Angelina Jolie and Meryl Streep, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Barbara and Jenna Bush, Chelsea Clinton, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and many foreign women who are fighting for women’s rights all over the world.

Hillary Clinton was highly critical of the idea that men all over the world seem to feel that they have a right to control what women do with their bodies, how they dress, what they advocate, and their ambitions to accomplish their goals for themselves and other women.

This was a sharp rejoinder to evangelical Christian and Catholic leadership, and conservative and Republican leadership in Congress, the state legislatures, and on talk radio and Fox News Channel, who have worked to push women’s rights in reverse with recent statements and actions.

These attempts at curbing women’s rights are doomed to failure, as women en masse will react against attempts to return women in America to the concept of women a century ago, and even as recently as the past 50 years.

A key goal is winning more seats in Congress, so as to have a greater impact on legislation and the agenda of the future!

There Will Be NO President Romney! The Demise In Process!

Ronald 1 Comment

It is now certain that there will be NO President Mitt Romney taking the oath of office on January 20, 2013.

It is also very likely that there will be someone other than Mitt Romney as the GOP Presidential nominee, after the Republican National Convention in August in Tampa, Florida.

Mitt Romney is loved by NO ONE other than his family and his paid workers, sorry to say.

Mitt Romney is not liked by many Americans because he is simply too rich, and wears his wealth constantly. Even his wife says she does not feel wealthy, imagine that!

Mitt Romney is distrusted by conservatives and Tea Party activists because they see him as a Massachusetts liberal who promoted RomneyCare, very close to the ObamaCare that he now condemns.

Mitt Romney is not liked because he is a Mormon, and evangelical Christians have a large impact on the heartland of the nation, and think of Mormons as not being Christian, but instead as a cult.

Mitt Romney is distrusted because he is the most massive flip flopper, and could be redefined in the vocabulary with his name meaning that term!

Mitt Romney has shown he cannot win the heartland of the nation against competition, having lost Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Colorado at this moment of writing to Rick Santorum, as well as losing South Carolina and Georgia to Newt Gingrich, and Tennessee to Santorum. Mitt Romney is NOT going to win the Atlantic Coast or the Pacific Coast, and he is not going to win Massachusetts or Vermont in the election, and will have a major struggle in Virginia, which, if all candidates had been on the ballot, he likely would have lost as well!

At this point, Mitt Romney’s only areas of strength are New England, the section he lived in for 40 year and served in government; Michigan, where he was born and grew up to adulthood; and Mormon areas in the Far West, including Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. And he is unlikely to win any of these in November, except maybe Arizona, Utah and Idaho, but not Nevada!

Mitt Romney has shown that despite all of his fantastic wealth, that does not give you the White House, and in fact, most Americans would feel uncomfortable with someone as filthy rich as Romney, who is worth more than the last eight Presidents combined, and assuming he lives to age 85, twenty years from now, he would be the first billionaire President, just from interest on his quarter of a billion fortune over a generation!

Mitt Romney does not represent America, and never could do so in any form!

The demise of Mitt Romney is in full bloom, even with Ohio still out at this writing, but with Rick Santorum leading, by 2,500 votes with 84 percent of the vote counted.

A reminder: EVERY Republican President has won Ohio, but if Romney either loses or only wins by a bare margin over Santorum in Ohio, how can anyone think he is able to win Ohio over Barack Obama in November?

With exactly eight months to the election, this Super Tuesday is good news for Barack Obama, above all!

Rick Santorum Attacked Mainline Protestantism Four Years Ago: The Fight Against Satan!

Ronald 2 Comments

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the frontrunner in many polls for the Republican Presidential nomination, is now revealed belatedly to have issued a harsh attack on mainline Protestantism–meaning the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and other churches who have, at least in portions, accepted the growing role of women and of gays and lesbians in church affairs–in a speech at Ave Maria University in Florida in 2008.

Santorum, a conservative Catholic, who is appealing to many evangelical Christian groups, condemned the mainline Protestants for having given in to Satan by liberalizing their approach to the Gospel.

Since mainline Protestants are a very large group as a whole in American religious life, this revelation should have a dramatic effect, and become a new issue in American politics. Many mainline Protestants have already abandoned what they consider the hardline, narrow minded view of the Republican Party since the 1990s, and have often been described as “progressive” in their social views.

So we may be witnessing a new religious “war”, in which evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, and Orthodox Jews are pitted against mainline Protestants, liberal oriented Catholics, and Conservative and Reform Jews, in the struggle for the spiritual support of Americans, in a country that was created based on separation of church and state, but has been pushed toward a theocratic vision by right wing religious advocates, which clearly include Rick Santorum as their present day “savior” from reform and modernization!

Health Care, Women’s Health Rights, And Churches And Synagogues

Ronald 2 Comments

The Obama Health Care legislation has come under attack on a new front: that hospitals and universities and other institutions connected to religious groups, other than actual church or synagogue properties, are being required to provide contraceptive and abortion services to women who work for those institutions, outraging the Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, and Evangelical Christian groups that oppose such practices.

An exemption for churches and synagogues has not been enough to appease these religious groups, and it threatens the support of these groups for the Obama re-election campaign, but if the Obama Administration abandons the rights of women of all religious persuasions and denies them such services, they could also lose support among women who want these services covered.

It is clear that a majority of Catholic women ignore the teachings of their own church, while it is not clear that the same is true for Orthodox Jews, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians.

So this presents a quandary for Obama, and is being called an attack on religion, rather than an issue of an attack on women’s health and basic human rights to control their own bodies. Rather than have to follow the teachings of groups that are dominated by men, many millions of women want to determine their own futures, and not be controlled by their employers as to what health coverage they have.

The likelihood is that Obama will cave in on this to the religious groups, but a true profile in courage would be to make it clear there is religious freedom in this country, but it should not dictate health services available to women in the name of religious liberty.

One does not have to accept contraceptives or pursue abortion, but women should have the freedom, no matter what their religion or no religion, to pursue their own freedom, separate from organized religious institutions trying to control their destiny. They should not be required to quit their employment to have freedom of choice.

Florida: A Complex State Politically, And Hard To Predict Its Impact

Ronald 1 Comment

With the Florida Republican Primary just eight days away, and with many Republican voters having already engaged in early voting or absentee mail ballots, the question arises as to what one can expect to happen on January 31.

Mitt Romney has the most money and is seen as the moderate in the race, although he professes to be conservative.

Newt Gingrich, flush off his victory in South Carolina, would seem to have an edge, although Florida is not quite the same as South Carolina electorally, being much more unpredictable.

Florida is really multiple states in electoral behavior, as the Panhandle, particularly west of Tallahassee, the state capital, is very much like South Carolina or “southern Alabama”, strongly evangelical Christian and Tea Party oriented. But central Florida, including Tampa and Orlando, tends to be made up of people from the Midwest, while South Florida has large concentrations of Cubans, but also Northeasterners, including Jews in large numbers. And Puerto Ricans are found in Orlando in large numbers, and liberal strongholds exist in Tallahassee due to Florida State University’s presence, and in Gainesville, home of the University of Florida.

So if Florida comes across in the GOP Primary as too conservative, that can affect the balance among Hispanics, African Americans, and Jews, heavily concentrated in South Florida and portions of Central Florida, when it comes to the Presidential election in November.

Florida has a “split personality”, and being a megastate, more representative of the nation than Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina, it could turn out to be very unpredictable in its impact on the Republican Presidential battle, and in the fall campaign against Barack Obama.

Newt Gingrich Victory In South Carolina Portends Most Ideological Election Since 1964!

Ronald 4 Comments

The massive Newt Gingrich victory in South Carolina today portends the most ideological election in America since 1964.

Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona overcame the moderate and centrist elements of the GOP in 1964, but led the party to total disaster in the fall against President Lyndon B. Johnson, winning only six states, five in the South and Arizona.

As much as Goldwater was divisive, in comparison to Newt Gingrich, the Arizona Senator seems in retrospect like a charm!

Goldwater was sincere in his beliefs, while Gingrich is a total opportunist, power hungry, and willing to create a “civil war” atmosphere in his mad dash to take power, and it is clear that he is a dangerous man like none we have seen in the past.

Only George Wallace, the former Alabama Governor who ran on a third party line in 1968, was equally dangerous, but fortunately, he was not on a major party line, and could only cause problems for the two major candidates.

Newt Gingrich, ironically censured by the House when he was Speaker of the House fifteen years ago on this date for ethical violations and fined $300,000, now has been resurrected by South Carolina evangelical voters and Tea Party activists.

The future of the nation is at stake in what looks more than ever like a real possibility of Newt Gingrich being the opponent of Barack Obama this November. This requires efforts, unsurpassed in the past, by those who do not wish such a destructive personality to sit in the Oval Office next January 20!

Newt Gingrich’s History Of Smears, And His Self Righteous Smear Against John King Of CNN

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Anyone who investigates Newt Gingrich’s long career of twenty years in the House of Representatives, and his involvement in speeches, books, consultancy, and political action since his years in the House, knows that Newt is infamous for his use of political invective to the extreme–character assassination, heated language designed to inflame, innuendos, smears–really anything to gain his goal of “stirring the pot” to promote his own personal agenda.

Newt Gingrich has proved in action and in speech that he has no limits to his indecency, his willingness to destroy the opposition. He has absolutely no ethics, morals, or scruples, and yet he is able to “push the buttons” of ignorant people who will hang on his every word, because of his constant self promotion as an expert, as brilliant, as talented, as more educated and knowledgeable than anyone else. His erratic behavior has been noted even by fellow Republicans, including Rick Santorum in last night’s debate.

Gingrich has once again been, at least temporarily, successful in deflecting criticism of his personal life. He pursued Bill Clinton, but we cannot have the news media do the same to him without his self righteous indignation! He is willing to smear anyone who stands in his way.

To say that cheating on and divorcing two wives, the first with cancer, and the second with multiple sclerosis, is acceptable behavior, shows how crooked and corrupt many evangelical Christians are, who will not display an open mind toward Democrats, the poor, gay Americans, or women who choose to promote their own human rights against the male chauvinism of those who claim divine guidance!

As a result of his ability to manipulate people, Gingrich has now smeared John King of CNN for having the nerve to ask him about his infidelity. And as the audience turned against John King, it has now been revealed by John King that at the first rest break in the debate last night in South Carolina that he approached Gingrich, who was very friendly and warm. King said he was surprised that Gingrich would speak to someone who he called “despicable”, and Gingrich’s response was to smile, and to say that King knew what the game was all about, meaning make your point to gain support from the crowd. After the debate, Gingrich and his wife approached King and continued to be warm and friendly. This shows just how phony Gingrich is!

And when one thinks about it, Gingrich is the later generation of Richard Nixon, who loved to demonize the opposition throughout his career. And he is also the epitome of the “Big Lie” technique, that the more one tells lies, the more people will believe it!

When one thinks back in history, as to whom was the master of the “Big Lie”, one is sobered to realize it was Adolf Hitler!