Since it was announced fundamentalist evangelical Christians were convening an "emergency meeting" to head off a Romney nomination, we've all been anxiously awaiting their decision. And now, as the South Carolina primary approaches, they've decided to coalesce around Rick Santorum and I couldn't be happier. From Alternet:
"Around 150 influentials in the religious right converged on the ranch of Paul Pressler, a retired justice of the Texas Court of Appeals and a director of the right-wing Salem Communications, to try to arrive at something close to a consensus on a candidate. It took three ballots to get to an agreement, if not a consensus, according to Perkins. The aim was to reach an agreement of two-thirds of those gathered at the Pressler ranch. Of 114 participants in the final ballot, 89 voted for Santorum, Perkins said.
In the end, it came down to a contest between Santorum and the better-funded and organized former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Perkins said, with Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Rick Perry -- both, ironically, of Texas -- being knocked off after the first ballot. The campaigns were permitted to have surrogates speak for them at the meeting, and Romney did indeed send a surrogate, which appeared to be little more than an exercise in politeness.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said, "The desire was not to repeat what took place in 2008." That would be when they failed to rally their collective might around Mike Huckabee and got stuck with McCain, and ultimately Obama.
But this time will be different! They are collectively placing all their chips on Senator Frothy Mix. Let's look at the current odds are for their sweater vest-wearing messiah, courtesy of Daily Kos Elections, of course:
SOUTH CAROLINA (American Research Group): Romney 29, Gingrich 25, Paul 20, Perry 9, Santorum 7, Huntsman 1
SOUTH CAROLINA (PPP): Romney 29, Gingrich 24, Paul 15, Santorum 14, Perry 6, Huntsman 5, Roemer 1
SOUTH CAROLINA (Rasmussen): Romney 28, Gingrich 21, Paul 16, Santorum 16, Perry 6, Huntsman 5
Consistently a
third fourth placer (math is hard), no matter how you crunch it.
This coalition of theocrats includes Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, and Gary Bauer of American Values. So, in other words, some of the most loathsome and hypocritical, lying money-changers in politics.
This is an excellent chance to see if the religious right have any real influence on voters, or if they are just shooting their mouths off and posturing about the great coalition of people that hang on their every sacred word?
I anxiously await to see if all those prayers for Rick Santorum pull him out of the sophmore slump he slide into since Iowa. Will Santorum's polling go up? Will he pull out of his current fourth place showing in South Carolina?
What do you say? Consider that back in July, Time reported "Christian leaders" were poised to go all out in support of the Rick Perry presidency.
Oops.