How did Dobson get to be #1?

[rockymountaindem]

I was always under the impression that Falwell and Robertson were the big-wigs of their movement, and that Dobson had only a supporting role. Was I wrong? And if I was, how did Dobson get to be in the same league with Fallwell and Robertson?

[saltpoint]

1. Because Jeeeeeeeeeee-sus wanted him to be!

I think Dobson is a very shrewd business man who knows how to handle money in all respects and has used it to carve himself a financial empire in Colorado Springs with significant arms reaching into local, state and national politics, quite a bit of that influence predicated on the success of his various child-rearing propaganda and of course the anti-gay initiatives.

In short, an asshole.

[rockymountaindem]

3. Oh, I know all about Colorado Springs

I live here and drive by Focus on the Family every day (well, on days I leave the house, which is 95% of the time). That's sort of why I thought he had local or regional reach, but was on the second rung of the nationwide evangelical ladder.

[saltpoint]

8. Hi, rockymountaindem.

I am glad YOU live in Colorado Springs, despite Dobson's being there, because it is really a beautiful city. I love it. (Lived there myself for a short while many years ago)

I have to ask: is Poor Richard's Read & Feed still there?

I spent a LOT of time in that place!

Beautiful city, tremendous view of the Front Range.

[rockymountaindem]

12. Poor Richard's is still open.

The owner, Richard Skorman, is the vice mayor of the city now and the only sane member of city government as far as I can tell. They sold the toy store part of it, though.

[saltpoint]

14. Oh it's good news that it's still open and that he's in city --

-- government now!

Great!

Keep up the good work out there!

[gmoney]

2. Reward for sucking Satan's cock the longest... (n/t)

[jobycom]

4. He got a lot of respect from Fundies

when Robertson and Falwell started looking too political and televangelistic. Then he just played his PR right, and wormed his way in. When one of the others needed some backup, Dobson stepped in.

My favorite Dobson story was when he attended the Southern Baptist convention a few years back and defended the SB position that women had to obey their husbands and that homosexuality was really, really naughty. As Dobson, who is a Seventh Day Adventist and not a Southern Baptist, was leaving the Convention, he suffered a stroke.

Logic would suggest to a fundie, you would think, that this was a sign from God of disapproval, especially as it happened just as Robertson was claiming that a series of forest fires around Orlando was divine punishment for gay pride week in Orlando. But no, no such message was divined. Dobson had just suffered a stroke, and the fundies prayed that he could recover and destroy more innocent people.

Even fundies don't believe their shit. They just say it to win arguments, like the guy who acts like he's crazy any time he gets in a fight, hoping to scare the other guy so bad he backs down.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. The old "Crazy fight guy" analogy.

Workable here.

[Maat]

18. I'm confused - Dobson stated that he came from the ..

Church of Nazarene (Pentecostal); his father and grandfather were ministers in that Church. I never heard he was a Seventh Day Adventist. Clarification, please?

[jobycom]

21. Ooo. Sorry, maybe faulty memory. I'd google it, but I just don't care

The main point was he wasn't a SOuthern Baptist.

[Maat]

23. Of that I am absolute sure! He is not Southern Baptist!

MY nutty relatives are Southern Baptist (we let my husband handle the conversations with them).

[kainah]

5. Dobson isn't a preacher

Remember, Dobson is a psychologist and he's been building his lists through Christian-centered (cough.... choke....) parenting for decades. People who would never have followed a preacher in the first place got sucked in by Dobson.

Besides, Dobson has been more of an under-the-radar guy while Falwell and Robertson have reached for way too much and fallen short. Dobson may soon face that same result but he's been slower to get there.

[Maat]

19. He was licensed in the state of California ..

I presume that license is no longer active.

And, curiously, despite having no minister's license, he refers to his org. as 'a ministry.'

[daleo]

6. Perhaps by his superior willingness to beat dogs and infants.

That's got to scare even the likes of Fallwell.

[carpetbagger]

9. Short answer: Dobson went after parents.

Falwell and Robertson were all about going after the activists. Dobson quietly built up his following by attracting a nonpoliticized audience of traditionalist parents and the megachurches that were beginning to attract them.

By the time he entered overt politics, he already had a base, a media and outreach infrastructure, and connections that were broader and deeper than Falwell and Robertson.

And, like other burning skunks, he's destined to repulse most of the same crowds that are drawn to his antics. Only he waited longer than the others to light himself on fire. Falwell and Robertson already have too much of a stench about them to go beyond the converted (and here I mean those who have mastered the art of worshipping both "g'd" and mammon.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. Stealth.

The man has slowly grown his following with his radio show for dummys and is even given air time on some TV stations with a 2 or 3 minute canned "How to raise your kids the way i think you should raise them" type parental advice bit.

He stands apart because he calls himself a "Psychologist and Author" as opposed to "Pastor" or "Reverend".

I read a rather long article online about him a few months back. He is apparently quite the bit of a rascist bigoted dickweed who moved his operation to Colorado Springs because it was just about the whitest town he could find that wasnt Mormon!

It is my understanding that a popular bumper sticker in Colorado Springs is "Focus on your OWN damned family" but the town is virtually overrun by closed minded fundy types that think nothing of proselytizing to everyone they can at every opportunity.

if i ever moved there i would raise goats.

Lots and lots of goats. And have a nice, lovely, cultured, flowery pentagram in the front yard.

Big enough to be visible from space.

[rockymountaindem]

13. I live in the Springs

Not too many of those "focus on your own damn family" stickers. Although, there were way more Kerry/Edwards stickers than I anticipated, some of which are still around.

[hlthe2b]

16. "focus on your own damn family" popular in Denver...

A wee bit safer, I guess. I love seeing them!

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. I stand corrected, RMD...thanks...

[dave123williams]

11. Blackmail?

[mitchum]

15. Shit floats

[Lexingtonian]

17. his 'movement' is the most political

The other Big Boys do politics as sideshow to their "ministry" aka 'witnessing' (blah blah blah).

Focus On The Family is almost the other way around. Dobson started out as a psychologist and he's more of a patriarchalist than a religious type. The televangelist shtick is easy to learn (look at how many sons follow their daddies into scamming the sheep and taking over the 'empires') but some of them never really love it for what it is.

So Dobson is a political hardliner, which I doubt about a bunch of the rest. Secondly, most of the rest have already tried themselves out in the public square and have taken a beating in it. Falwell for the Moonie Connection and the Moral Majority, Robertson for that '88 run at the Presidency and that undeniable anti-Semitism in the bio he issued for it, Oral Roberts for the 'God will kill me' scam, the Swaggerts for the hooker scandal, Graham for his association with the Nixon people and Jr.'s druggie/hippie/sex days. Bob Jones for the cute little racism scandelousness around BJU. Basically, everybody's had his/her (in the case of Tammy Faye Baker and Rexella Van whatsherface) run. Not to mention the Reverand Sun Young Moon, or Scientology, or the SBC, or the rest of what's hiding behind the curtins in that hive of scum and villainy (and sanctimony) called the Religious Right.

To the extent I can figure it out there has been a division of labor among the politically viable parts of the RR. Howard Ahmanson (Huntington Beach or Irvine) more or less funds and instigates all the Creationism crap. The SBC or some bunch of Texas/Oklahoma megachurch folks (Dallas area) are the school prayer/home schooling/vouchers and "compassionate conservatism" people; I'd guess that Marvin Olasky is the key figure. James Kennedy's people (Tampa/Clearwater-ish) ride point on fighting gay marriage. The LDS seems to be the key player west of the Rockies in fighting against gay rights and womens' rights. Dobson seems to be the go-to guy for Washington and fighting gay rights and womens' rights east of the Rockies.

Democrats taking over the Colorado legislature probably pushed Dobson to taking his game from mostly playing between the Rockies and Mississippi to Washington. This is easy to overlook as a factor. But once liberals start demonstrating against your group's bigotry in front of your HQ in Colorado Springs and start passing gay rights bills in Denver, as an RR theocrat you know you have to escalate.

[Maat]

20. You got it!

I've been researching the religious right for awhile now, and you summed it up nicely.

They've even got a hold out here in SoCal. I'm inland, just about an hour north of San Diego. "Calvary Chapel" and a guy named Smith is big out here.

Everyone knows that the white supremacists hang out in Rainbow/Fallbrook/Escondido.

Ahmansen funds our local and national Rethuglican candidates.

[ComerPerro]

22. He had the courage to stand up to SpongeBob and the Teletubbies

:puke:

[donheld]

25. I'm sorry Dobson is #2 and always will be.

Next time your in the bathroom think about it. :hurts: