Evangelical Support for Republicans Waning?

I saw this on the transcript of Rush Limbaugh's program today, and it really struck me. He's discussing why Huckabee (who I support) won the South.

...As far as the regional vote, what's been called the regional vote, the Southern vote for Huckabee, there are a number of things that go into this. And one of the things that I think is relevant here is, in fact, geography, the Southern component, the regionalism of Huckabee being an Arkansas governor. Second thing, of course, is the evangelical vote, and I think you heard the anger from Suzanne, and she said that she is Catholic, she's Christian, so she thinks she's Christian right, but I think there's starting to be in the Republican Party sort of an equivalence between blacks in the Democrat Party and evangelicals in the Republican Party in this sense. Now, we've looked at blacks for 50 years. They keep voting for Democrats. The Democrats do nothing but destroy their families. They do nothing to increase their economic circumstances. They do nothing to redress the grievances and yet the blacks keep voting for them on the basis of the promise and the notion that Republicans are racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes, and are going to really make 'em be bad, so they keep hanging with Democrats, and nothing changes.

Evangelicals, since 1973, have stuck with Republicans, basically on the promise, "We're going to do something about abortion. We're going to fix the cultural rot that's going on in this country. We're going to make sure there isn't any gay marriage. We're going to stop this overall lurch to depravity that's occurring in our culture," and the Republican candidates have all said, "I'm your man, we're going to do that," and they make the right speeches, but nothing's really changing on it. And so they, the evangelicals, are a little bit quicker to realize when they're being taken for granted. So their votes, "Look, we're going to go with one of ours. At least we can trust this guy, plus we do hate the IRS, you haven't heard us. You keep promising tax reform, not tax cuts, tax reform and every year it gets harder and harder for us to pay our taxes and we're paying more and more and we can't get ahead because of taxes and this guy wants to get rid of the IRS," so, bam, you've had it and they're voting for their guy. They're voting for Huckabee.

I think there's genuine support for Huckabee. I think the IRS factors a big deal in his support. I've gotten enough e-mail to know this. There are a whole host of reasons that make up this vote, but you also have, in certain evangelicals, just no stomach whatsoever for Mormons. All of these things, it's not just one thing, it's all these things combined that I think explain the regionalism, Huckabee being from Arkansas, being one of them, dissatisfaction with all the false promises that have come from Republicans, just the lip service, opportunity to vote for one of their own finally who will not take 'em for granted because he is one of them. Getting rid of the IRS is huge. I'm telling you, it is. Then of course the Mormon factor. So you throw all these things together, and it explains why McCain is not ...

I personally consider myself a social/fiscal conservative, in that order. I passionately care about a balanced budget and reducing the debt. However, I care about permanently ending abortion more, and that narrows my choices dramatically. Romney is/was way too iffy and recent on his pro-life support, and McCain supports embryonic stem cell research. On the fiscal side, McCain does well, but Romney seems too ready to bail out struggling industries (like the $20 billion he promised Michigan).

Limbaugh's comments above sum up a lot of my reasons for supporting Huckabee. He's the only candidate who supports a Human Life Amendment. He wants to get rid of the IRS, and replace it with a reasonable national sales tax. He supports the basic Republican foreign policy. I'll admit I'm a bit more wary of his education and health policies (namely whether he would just use the bully pulpit, or if he would push new federal legislation in violation of the Tenth Amendment). So my support for Huckabee isn't unreserved. He's simply the best of an iffy crowd.

P.S.
I don't agree with Limbaugh's anti-Mormon line about why people are voting for Huckabee. No doubt there are people out there for whom that was their primary reason, but I don't think that they are nearly as numerous as the pundits do. However, I disagree with the opinion that a candidate's religion should have no relevance to deciding one's vote. I'm not embarrassed to say that my initial hesitation on Romney was related to being a Mormon (if one buys wholesale into a cult, even if raised on it, what does that say for your judgement?). However, his conduct since, with tons of negative adds, trying to buy the presidency by unfaily (but admittedly, unfortunately legal) spending tens of millions of his own money, and his repeatedly saying all kinds of crazy thinks to win local votes (case-in-point is again his promise of Michigan money) showing how dangerous he would be to elect, with is drastic changes on social issues during his governorship being the icing on the cake.

Presidential Debate Opinion II

Just finished watching the CNN/YouTube debate, so here's my scorecard:

1) Huckabee/Hunter tie
3) Tancredo
4) Romney
5) McCain
6) Giuliani
7) Thompson
8) Paul

Same judging criteria as before.

Full disclosure: I support Mike Huckabee

Hunter scored as well as Huckabee, but he was asked half as many questions. If it'd been equal time, that may not have held.


Tancredo didn't punch his "America is closed" line, which was appreciated.

Romney did his normal OK job. Mostly he got docked for taking shots at other candidates. Still seemed to dodge questions.

McCain properly emphasized his military experience and care for the troops. Again, too many shots on other candidates.

I disagree with Giuliani on a lot of issues, which is where he lost points, but at least he has logical explanations for his positions.

Thompson just seemed asleep at the podium. Between that, his shots at other candidates, and his belief in old-fashioned federalism over morality, he got hurt badly tonight.

Paul is completely out of touch with reality. Nice theory, but completely impractical. At least tonight, he brought up valid points about deficit spending.

A couple points I want to make:

On torture: I recently found out from my roommate from an NPR program he heard that waterboarding is not the technique commonly described. The normal belief is that either they have water dripping on you slowly but steadily, or put plastic wrap over your face and pour water on that. What really happens is that they pour water directly into your mouth, effectively drowning you for a few seconds. The common belief I might support as not being torture, but what it really is, I would never support. I don't know if we should be saying what is allowed, but I believe that we definitely should say what is not.

On federalism: Several candidates, particularly Thompson, believe that on issues like abortion, the federal government should get out, and let the states do their thing. In principle I agree, but there is the reality check of the Supreme Court. Given that the Court can override any state legislature, there are some questions that need to be determined at the national level. I place abortion in that category. Huckabee said it right a few weeks ago: abortion is this time's slavery debate, and it is an issue of human value. It cannot be decided on a state-by-state basis.

Life of Frustration

Yet another long break between posts.

So, what have I been doing over the summer? Looking back, the short answer is not much. No vacations, no travel, no major projects, no friends. I work, I come home, I sleep. Thursdays and Sundays, I go to church. A lot of the time it feels like I could drop of the planet, and the only people who would notice would be my co-workers, wondering why I didn't show up. To this day, I doubt anybody else would really care, including my supposed roommate.

Overall, I'm frustrated. Frustrated in my job, in my church, my personal life, and in politics. I guess I'd better explain those.

My job situation's changed recently. In effect, I've been demoted, though they aren't calling it that. I used to be a Systems Administrator, basically one of 3 people responsible for keeping all the servers at work running smoothly. Over the last couple months, I've been moved more and more into being, and now officially am, a Network Security Specialist -- a fancy term for an overhyped paper-pusher. My job now is to make make sure everyone has access to the network locations they're supposed to (and nowhere else), and that all the little security software bits we use are staying updated on everyone's computers. It's the kind of job that you could hire anybody with rudimentary computer knowledge for, but has to be done by someone the company trusts. I've been selected for this august imbecility because I'm the least experienced person, and because I'm the only one who thinks about security before doing something stupid. It also means I have absolutely zero chance of any advancement within the company, and insufficient experience or contacts to have a good shot at getting a job elsewhere.

My church situation feels like it's going downhill steadily. A few months ago, my church made a decision that I strongly consider un-Scriptural. They asked for private comments from the congregation, so I made my feelings known. The pastor of course disagrees, and we ended up in an e-mail debate for about a week, until I, in a single e-mail, found a self-contradiction between what he was saying and his past statements, and brought out what is probably our base source of disagreement: I take a passage literally, and he doesn't. At that point, he went silent, and I haven't heard a word from him since. The change made doesn't affect me, so I haven't left. In the pastor's sermons, though, he's taken a couple of passing shots at my position -- saying that my position is wrong, but without providing any information or basis for people to actually think about. In some ways, I feel the only reasons I'm still going there are because I have been for years, and the Men's Group is good enough for me to stay around. That doesn't mean I'm particularly happy, though.

My personal life, really, is just going nowhere. All my old friends are gone, and I haven't connected with anybody new to fill those voids. The only person left I have a long-term connection with is Nacho, and he's here for maybe 2 days a month, on average. We enjoy ourselves during those times, but over the last several months I've seen him breaking ties with his former mentor, albeit for very good cause, and it's eating him up more than he wants to admit. Add in that his physical condition is steadily deteriorating, and he's not really willing to make the major changes necessary to improve, and I'm getting tired of having to fill the role of his Keeper. At least he knows where he wants to go, which I don't. But I'm becoming less certain he realizes how much he'll have harmed himself before he gets there.

Finally, there's the always-annoying world of politics. As a hard-line "conservative," I can't remember the last time something happened in the political arena that I agreed with. Then I look ahead to the 2008 election, and it gets worse. I've already found the candidate I support: Mike Huckabee. I don't agree with him on everything. In fact, I'm downright opposed to a couple of his key platform points as being un-Constitutional. However, they're points that are shared to some extent by all the candidates, and I agree with him on the rest of his ideas, many of which I am fervently in favor of, like the Flat Tax. The problem is that he's a "second-tier candidate," firmly in 5th place, and not even close to being a contender on fund-raising. He's operating on a shoestring budget, working off the hope (I'd like to call it a theory or premise, but honestly can't) that if he can win or do very well in the very early primaries (IA, NH, SC), it'll give him the momentum to win the rest of the country. Now, I'll be the first to say he's probably the most likable and personal of the candidates. He's got the relaxed speaking abilities of his Baptist pastor past, and is able to clearly articulate his ideas and make them sound like the common sense they are. However, he's barely keeping his campaign afloat financially, bringing in less than $1M in the just-finished 3rd Quarter, and I think his "primary slingshot" theory is fundamentally flawed. This leaves me in a rather frustrated position, because I don't think that I can in good conscience vote for any of the "front-runners," for various reasons.

So, that's my life. Not very fun. I'm going to Houston for work training next week, so we'll see if I think to post again.