California Conservative

That’s all I can say about Eleanor Clift’s latest MSNBC column. She starts getting things wrong in the first paragraph. No sense waiting, right?

John Kerry lost the presidency in Ohio, a state with huge job losses that should have been his to win. But voters had no clear idea of Kerry’s economic agenda, and the moral implications of gay marriage were drilled into them every Sunday by their neighborhood pastor.

Kerry lost because (a) the Ohio GOTV effort was so rock solid; (b) Ohioans knew that Kerry was a tax-and-spend liberal who wasn’t a good panderer; (c) Christians coming out in droves so that their voices be heard in a major cultural issue; and (d) because Kerry didn’t have a serious approach to fighting the GWOT, something that persists to this day. Other than that, Ms. Clift was right. Sorta.

When Clift says that Christians had “the moral implications of gay marriage” “drilled into them every Sunday by their neighborhood pastor”, the implication is that evangelical Christians didn’t understand that already. Also implied in that paragraph is that courts should settle major social issues, not passion-driven voters.

The only way the Republicans can win in Ohio is if the Democrats blow it, and they’re working at it. Democratic Party leaders pressured Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett to withdraw from the Senate race (in favor of a veteran congressman) with undercover operatives launching a whisper campaign about Hackett’s service that was reminiscent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Kerry, and equally reprehensible. And with every House seat critical for the Democrats to regain control, the party is seeking to retain the seat of Rep. Ted Strickland, their candidate for governor, but still fell short of the required number of 50 signatures. Fifty signatures! How hard is that? In addition to these snafus, after a string of losses over two decades, Ohio Democrats aren’t sure they know their voters anymore. The political muscle of the religious right, which grew the conservative electorate in a state historically focused on bread-and-butter issues, has Democrats running scared, as well it should.

Here’s another classic case of liberal denial. As Clift says, Ohio Democrats aren’t sure they “know their voters anymore” but “it’s still Democrats’ race to lose”? There’s only one way to explain it: typical liberal logic. The truth is that Democrats, not just in Ohio but nationwide, have become the elitist party. They’ve stopped being the “Party of the People” that they were well into the 80’s.

The truth is that most Americans think of themselves as having traditionalist viewpoints on cultural issues. Most people don’t want courts forcing their liberal social views on unsuspecting Americans and rightfully so.

In my opinion, liberalism died when progressives took over the Democratic Party. No longer was it good enough to be a traditionalist on the issues. NOW wasn’t happy just with abortion rights or equal rights for women. They fought for judges that said that abortion wasn’t just legal but available anytime the woman wanted. They fought for judges that said a parent couldn’t be involved in their minor daughter’s ‘reproductive rights’. Anti-war activists weren’t just opposed to the military. They started labelling good men like Joe Lieberman as Republican lite and sellouts.

A group of 31 mainstream pastors has filed a complaint with the IRS challenging the tax-exempt status of churches that openly engage in partisan campaign activity, which is unlikely, even if the campaign succeeds, to stem the tide of evangelical support for Blackwell. His political rivals are looking for ways to expose him as a black Elmer Gantry, a huckster with no core convictions.

Notice the prominent placing of the term mainstream pastors? The implication is that pastors that actually believe the things that the Bible teaches are somehow far outside the political mainstream. Notice, too, the way that Clift and his political enemies don’t attack his positions on the merits. They simply label him as being a “huckster.” I’m certain that they believe that. Still, it isn’t like the name-calling is persuasive to anyone with actual intellectual capabilities.

Clift’s saying that this should be the Dems’ year to win in Ohio sounds much like Bob Beckel and Susan Estrich telling everyone that the race was over in 04, that it was Kerry’s “race to lose.” Either Kerry was more than up to the task to lose by 3+ million votes or Estrich and Beckel were wrong.

I suspect that Clift is wrong, too.

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 4th, 2006 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Elections, Liberals, Media, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.