McCain, Obama, Evangelicals, and Rachael Ray

Paul Harvey

McCain is still trying to make it to first base with evangelicals, according to today's New York Times story. Apparently, the fact that he wants the states individually rather than the federal government singly to outlaw gay marriage ticks them off.

Meanwhile, Louis Ruprecht provides an analysis of religion and the Obama campaign. He concludes:

One regularly hears that the question for Obama is whether lower-and-middle-class voters can be convinced that “he is really like them.” The implicit notion seems to be that “being like them” involves being Christian, somehow. There are two ways to interpret this belief, both of them disturbing.

The first is that America is still imagined as a strictly Christian nation and thus a presidential candidate must be Christian, in some recognizable way, to be considered viable (with all due sympathy to Mitt Romney). That flies in the face of current demographics, especially among the post-Baby Boomer generations to whom Obama speaks with eloquence and power.

The second is that “being like us” is indeed a code for race, that being like us involves being white and Protestant and thus if one is not white, but “merely” mixed, then one somehow can’t really be Christian.

It is more than a little sad that mainline Christians are not speaking more forcefully and with outrage against either of these scarcely veiled noxious beliefs.

Finally, John Hagee may be down, but he's not out, and if Rachael Ray is a secret jihadi, then why not Michelle Malkin as well? Makes perfect sense, by the logic of Islamophobia. Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful.