What the nutcase fundies really want.

[saltpoint]

IMO, they want control of the country generally and the Republican Party specifically as a tool to achieve their ultimate end: a fundamentalist theocracy that pervades every institution in our society -- government, libraries, schools, health care, and so forth.

A handful of sycophantic GOP candidates clamor to win the fundies' endorsement, especially Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Bill Frist, and others.

Some fundies seem uneasy, however, about other GOP candidates, such as John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Bloomberg, Condoleeza Rice, and Chuck Hagel, since by degree they seem less aligned with fundamentalists' concerns, and have cross-over appeal to independents and even some Dems.

I think many nutcase fundamentalists believe the 2008 GOP nominee SHOULD be Brownback, Huckabee, or Frist. But what if it is one of the five other, less malleable candidates -- McCain, Giuliani, Bloomberg, Rice, Hagel?

If what the nutcasers want is to manipulate the GOP to achieve their theocratic aims, but the '08 GOP candidate doesn't play ball, or appears less willing than they'd prefer, what will the fundies do?

They'll --

[saltpoint]

1. I believe Chuck Hagel will be the GOP nominee, and that the far-right

fundies will be appalled at his assertion of independence.

Hagel's electability is not dependent upon large fundie turn-out, because he will appeal to independents and even a few Democrats.

I also don't see him as somebody who would kowtow and pander to Jim Dobson et al the way Bush has.

And if it's Hagel, I think the nutcasers form a third party hastily and nominate Sam Brownback.

[peace frog]

4. That's a dream scenario

Unlikely, but what the hell. Dreams are all we have right now.

[saltpoint]

5. Yep. I agree the odds are a bit long. But a split GOP would essentially

hand us the White House.

I love the prospect!

[nealmhughes]

2. History shows us that the Theocrats only exist as sound bites and a

steady money source for the Corporate aka Republican Party. Their fanatical messianic stance via Israel makes them very useful to the Israel lobby/anti-Palestine lobby aka institutionalized militarism. Their "morality-based" agenda makes the job of policing thought palatable to large numbers. They are indeed a very useful tool for the Corporate Party, but a tool is all they are. Most of them are too unsophisticated to realize it, though.

[saltpoint]

3. Hello, nealmhughes. Thank you for your post.

I accept your point readily about the more sophisticated pro-Israel lobby being an influential force in U.S. politics but I was more interested in your later point there (which I also agree with) about many of the fundies not really having much of a clue about who is manipulating them.

And then, that unsophisticated group being led by an equally unsophisticated leader. And of course Sam Brownback comes to mind. He's crafty but he's so skewed toward a fundamentalist state that he can't find his own hindend with a three-way mirror and a bevy of paid consultants.

That unsophisticated demographic is the group I feel will bolt from the GOP if the Republicans nominate McCain (they can't control him reliably), Bloomberg (they couldn't control him at all), Giuliani (whose divorces disturb them and whose two gay roommates in NYC REALLY disturb them), and Rice (who despite the GOP label is an educated, air-conditioned Stanford type).

I'm hunching only, of course. But to me these folks are short-fused and boltable.

[nealmhughes]

8. Whomever gets the most soundbites about Jesus and gays and pro-Nascar

will probably get the nomination. Throw in some I'm less "cut and run than you are" and they have the nomination in the bag.
What is funny though is that the ones who really believe all that tribal superstition (or claim they do, and there is a big difference) won't even be candidates. The real fundy candidate would be Roy Moore. He even scares the snake handlers!
Glad you liked my post and saw that it was not anti-Israel per se, but a confusion of a modern state with a semi-mythical kingdom that has not existed for 2000 years plus and had supposed divine origin.
I think that Fundamentalists fail to see the poetic language of the prophets of "New Jerusalem" and "Zion" as metaphor, but as real places that only recently lost their freedom from the Nazis/Communists/Arabs (somehow these are all mangled in the Fundy mind).
Their fixation on Israel is alarming in that it is not based on rights of self-preservation from genocidal generations in Europe, but rather as a religious tenet!
When one reduces it to its logical conclusion, it comes down to "God gave all the land to the Jews" (actually to the Hebrews, as Abraham could not have been a Jew until after the Mosaic revelations) and they were to conquer the Caananites (read Arabs there, though, I don't know what a Caananite or Phillistine or Moabite or Ammonite today is -- Israeli Arab? Lebanese? Syrian or Jordanian? -- therefore they have no rights, because God made Abraham drive Ishmael out into the desert, although Ismael was said to have fathered the Arabians and not the Caananites, Philistines, Moabites and Ammonites), therefore we have to preserve God's promise. Unquestionably. God demands it.
What is sad is that it negates the Shoah and Israel's promise of redemption for all Jews. That is a great idea. Unfortunately, politics got in the way with the wars and divisions and the Arabs becoming second class citizens. I guess God does not care about them (even though whole cities are Christian!). It's God's will.
Isn't that sad? To be dupes for an earnestly held religious belief?

[saltpoint]

9. Roy Moore probably does scare the snake-handlers. He certainly scares

me. What a frightening man.

I am pro-Israel (my father was a WWII scholar) and I am strongly in favor of a Palestinian State. A lot of people prefer that I be only one or only the other. While it's not my wish to displease them, that's nevertheless where I stand.

The demonization of any peoples, no matter who is doing it, is reprehensible. The Bush administration misrepresents both the Founders' instincts and aspirations as well as current citizens' hopes for respect among allied nations when it demonizes an "axis of evil" and proceeds to launch military offensives against sovereign cultures, most of whose citizens are unarmed and helpless.

The Klan is a real entity for me, simply because I have been an observer during times after WWII when it held sway in many communities and acted for all express purposes like a terrorist group above and beyond considerations of law. That it is still active is just as reprehensible. Klan terrorism is more local than military strikes on Iraq or the Gaza Strip, but all politics, as they say, are pretty local. The victims have many zip codes and country IDs.

I do find that many fundamentalist Christians -- the real target of my OP -- do not have a sense that Jesus arose from a tradition of Jewish prophets. I don't even 'know' clinically, inarguably, that he existed at all, but if he did, he was Jewish and eschewed institutional religious practice, preferring instead to seek wild John out in the remote deserts. Would that his contemporary fundie followers do the same.

I find an appalling lack of understanding on the part of fundamentalist Christians on the origins of their own faith. To me, that invalidates their license to practice that faith, and allows more integrated viewpoints to dismiss them. I'm willing to listen to a long Christian talk by Bill Moyers, but not to more than 2 minutes of the next proselytizing asshole fundie who pounds on my front door at 8:15 a.m. Sunday morning, and especially so if that fundie doesn't know any more about Christianity than I do.

So it's those Christians I'm aiming at in my OP. I review my poll and realize that I've forgotten George Allen and 'am surprised no one's called me on it so far. But he's likely in that group craving endorsement by the far-right nutcasers. I wish I had remembered to include him in the first place.

[Hippo_Tron]

12. Stephen Colbert said it best the other night

He did a segment called "Stephen makes it simple" about how some people who want small government are confused because people who claim to be for small government are for regulating marriage and sexual acts, etc.

He explained that, "Posting the ten commandments in public buildings or banning homosexual unions is small government. But if they're caring for the poor, turning the other cheek, or sitting down with tax gatherers, that's big government. To put it simpler, mentioning Jesus in your speech is small government; Doing what Jesus asked is big government."

[saltpoint]

13. Colbert is on a hot streak. I'd pay hard cash to listen to a debate

between Colbert and Jim Dobson.

[baldguy]

6. They want Armageddon

Their arrogant narrow-minded misreading of the bible requires them to. They will support any candidate who promises to lead them there.

[saltpoint]

7. Sam Brownback: The Armageddon candidate.

I think Sam would relish the role.

[Hippo_Tron]

10. I think that their voting block will be divided

But if the nominee is one of the five, you can bet on two things...

1) The VP nominee will be somebody like Brownback, Frist, or Huckabee. The VP nominee will be stumping for religious groups all over the country with Democrats hate religion speeches.

2) The nominee will be incredibly ambiguous about who he will appoint to the Supreme Court, but his people will attempt to privately pacify the religious right and tell them that they have nothing to worry about.

3) The GOP will do everything in its power to get the religious right to come out and vote AGAINST the Democratic nominee.

As far as the religious right voting block is concerned, I think that SOME of them might be won over by a Democrat with red state appeal. Whether this is a significant enough number to win an election, I don't know.

A lot of them will probably stay home and a lot of them will still vote Republican.

[saltpoint]

11. Hi, Hippo_Tron. It's nice to see Paul Wellstone's visage in your post.

It's for sure the GOP has NOBODY like him. What a star he was.

Your articles and conditions for the GOP nominee/veep nominee are all plausible. I realize a lot depends on who is nominated for the top position.

Hagel strikes me as unacceptable as far as my vote is concerned, but preferable to Allen, Frist, Giuliani, Brownback, McCain, and so forth. Not good by any means, but not as BAD as the rest of the GOP pack of wolves.

It would please me if the fundies took issue with the GOP nominee and bolted. Again, I concede the odds are against it. But what fun that would be to watch the fundies splinter the GOP vote.