There was speculation all week about the meeting in Salt Lake City last weekend between religious right honchos, who are becoming increasingly alarmed that the frontrunning GOP nominees don't make the cut when it comes to the "Values Test" (the Big Two: abortion and gay marriage). They're particularly freaked about Giuliani, who seems poised to take the nomination. So freaked out are they by the prospect of a Giuliani nomination that they've threatened to abandon the GOP for a 3rd-party candidate. The Dobster pontificated about it last week in that baby-killing homo newspaper, the New York Times:"REPORTS have surfaced in the press about a meeting that occurred last Saturday in Salt Lake City involving more than 50 pro-family leaders. The purpose of the gathering was to discuss our response if both the Democratic and Republican Parties nominate standard-bearers who are supportive of abortion." [...]
After two hours of deliberation, we voted on a resolution that can be summarized as follows: If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate. Those agreeing with the proposition were invited to stand. The result was almost unanimous." (emphasis mine)
So the wars don't matter, national security is small potatoes, health care a trifle, the environment a sniffle, the huge burgeoning out-of-control debt not a problem... all the Dobsonoids care about is being able to stuff their noses in the wassypoovoos of the nation and keep teh gayz from getting married. Well, we knew that. But this is the first time (that I can remember) that they've been willing to turn their backs on the GOP to get it done.
Dobson goes on to address recent stories (in the "secular" media - heh) about the "implosion" of the religious right, maintaining that on the contrary, they have never been more united. He threatens "If the major political parties decide to abandon conservative principles, the cohesion of pro-family advocates will be all too apparent in 2008."
I'm constantly amazed by the marketing acumen that enabled these Christian talibangelists to co-opt expressions like "pro-family" and "moral values". Misogyny is never "pro-family" and there's nothing "moral" about bigotry, yet they've been able to re-define and own those terms completely. This is as much a failure of progressives to meet such semantic stealth with equal aggression as it is a sign of the religious right's creeping malevolence. But onward...
The 3rd-party threat was largely seen as just that -- an empty threat -- but it looks like they might be serious. It'd be interesting to see who they'd back as a candidate -- would one of the GOP nomination losers make the cut? Or someone from within the religious right itself -- after all, they don't want a president, they want an ayatollah.
This could be good. A 3rd party would almost certainly kill the GOP's chances unless massive numbers of Democrats stayed home on election day -- although if the Democrats don't smarten up pretty quick, that could happen, too.
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