Blowing off 'values voters'
In case there was any doubt that the religious right’s power is on the wane, the evidence was quite clear last night in South Florida. Several evangelical groups co-hosted what they labeled the “Values Voter Debate,” featuring theocratic right-wing luminaries like Phyllis Schlafly, Roy Moore, Paul Weyrich, Don Wildmon, Rick Scarborough, and Janet Folger. The event was “moderated” by Joseph Farah, the unhinged activist who founded WorldNetDaily.
Shortly after the event was announced, the debate organizers said seven of the nine GOP candidates would participate. Shortly thereafter, sponsors lowered expectations, saying only that a “majority” would participate. By the time candidates took the stage last night, the entire Republican top-tier — Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and John McCain — was a no-show.
Little more than asterisks in the public opinion polls, the lesser-known candidates for president tried Monday to appeal to the most conservative elements of the Republican Party in an attempt to break into top-tier status.
Hot-button social issues, especially related to abortion and homosexuality, were the most frequent questions posed to seven candidates for their party’s presidential nomination at the Values Voter debate at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
To get to seven, organizers had to include Alan Keyes and John Cox.
Worse, debate organizers said they had a waiting list with people anxious to attend the event, but they were probably bearing false witness -- about a third of the 2,700 seats at the Broward Center for Performing Arts were empty.
Don’t go away mad, religious right; just go away.
Thank goodness their power is on the decline.....it is about time
Not one word about Ron Paul, who received loud applause throughout the night from supporters.
And Paul won the WND poll.
I always hated the term "values voters". All voters have value systems that inform how they vote. It is not a matter of some voters having values and others not, it is rather competing value systems.
I think it's safe to say that they've worn out there welcome(so to speak)....and 1 more thing....I Don't miss Jerry Falwell...and never will.
I am continuing to think I am going to like this next election.
Oh Phyllis and her ilk have values.
Just not moral values.
tommykey--
values voter is just a quick buzz phase created by frank luntz to deoderize a group of people who's underlying political and spritual foundation rests on the belief that mankind is utterly and completely worthy of contempt.
*sigh* Considering how the Republicans have used social conservatives all these years, despite the Republican's rampant hypocrisy on the subject of 'Family Values' I don't think you can consider the moral majority's power on the wane based on this example. The Republican's have long avoided appealing directly to the social conservative then roping them in later with code words or phrases to let them know that despite their public posturings, they they do indeed hate niggers, fags, chicks, logic, the coasts, and dang feriners.
Good...........I live on the Gulf about forty miles from that area. Times are changing back..............as Bob Roberts would say. Love that movie; love Tim and Susan.
When one GOPerve after another getting arrested, it's hard to fathom why anyone would still admit to being a repug.
Still waiting for an article about Atchison(too tired to check spelling) to appear in the Bradenton Herald.......................snore.
Never underestimate these fuckers. They are like the poisonous vermin. They may be forced to crawl back to their dungholes once in a while but they breed like rats and will return over and over to try to destroy our Constitution and our country. I count the idiot savant in the White House as one of them.
Jo @ 10:
absolutely...they'll be back
Phylis Schafley's still alive?
How friggin dare anyone out there make fun of the religious right after all they have been through. They lost Jerry Falwell, Karl Rove doesn't talk to them anymore. They have multiple friggin gay sex scandals. Ted Haggard turned out to like to smoke meth with gay hookers and now he's going through deprogramming.
All you people care about is trying to trip them up in some sort of scandals. THEY ARE ONLY HUMAN!
What you don’t realize is that the religious right is making all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about them. They haven't forced through any legislation in years. Pat Robertson goes on TV and asks for more money for a reason, you won't give it to him. All he really wants is MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE, but then you ask for some results. LEAVE THEM ALONE!
You are lucky they even bother talking to the president for you BASTARDS! LEEEAVE THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT ALONEE!! *starts bawling*
Jo!
"...bearing false witness."
Good line! That's what the Bushies have been doing for the last seven years... and that's how they have taught their supporters to run campaigns.
They bear false witness, all right... and that's an understatement.
American Exceptionalism Meets Team Jesus
Tom Engelhardt interviews James Carroll
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=11631
I heard the moderators asked the candidates that were NOT there questions... and they all sat in silence while the questions went (obviously) unanswered.
Apparently, the buttons aren't all that hot, anymore. The religious right was rankly used and abused by the Neocon Republicans. They held the door while their con-men cum 'good Christian' buddies looted the treasury, started an illegal and murderous war, and stripped the Constitution. Abortion? Homos running amok? The War on Christmas? Sorry - maybe next time.
Maybe the Teri Schiavo debacle was worth somehing, after all. It, more than anything else, exposed the religious right and their representatives as the misguided goofballs they truly are.
Both the values voters AND the top tier candidates will do anything to anyone -- that's what makes them so scary. The top candidates would show if the money was right.
I wouldn't get too excited about the election, since the G Ole Party probably has a few false flags up their sleeves. Iran is a clear and present opportunity.
So-o-o-o-o many issues to talk about...but abortion and homosexuality win out again.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Forrest was right.
Fools! Only now do they realize the POWER of their DARK SIDE!
Lollimom @ 20:
And in the box of chocolates that is this life, they are left disgarded...half-chewed...in the bottom of the box.
mudshark @ 11:
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" - Thomas Jefferson
These people have been used again and again. They are simply taking a rest until the next generation is ready to be used by a bunch of men who claim to have values and prove everyday that they have none.
Mitt is busy trying to appeal to them once more. He has come out against gay marriage, while it is pretty much a silent issue at the time. What a brave man. You have to love a man so desperate that he appeals to the lowest among us despite the fact that most Americans are against amending the Constitution.
The contest to win the values voters has always been who claims to be the biggest bigot. That is the only value these people have or have ever had.
is there any "youtube" stuff on this freak show?
Be ye raptured! Already!
They want nothing more than to go away, to be among the 144,000 elect who are raptured to Heaven before the Time of Travails. One problem that you, Attentive Reader, may have already spotted with taking the Book of Revelations literally if you want to apply it to the fundamentalist movement here and now, is that there are only 144,000 slots available to be raptured, yet there are millions of dues-paying fundamentalists who have been assured, in exchange for them dues, that they have been born again into the elect. Sort of like musical chairs, only the stakes are, at least notionally, a lot higher, and there's a much bigger shortfall than just one chair removed.
I have a suggestion for you fundies that, no doubt, you will prove quite capable of ignoring. If there's only 144,000 elect, and there's lots more than 144,000 of you, maybe you guys ain't the elect. Revelations is full of parallels and close correspondences between the forces of Good and those of Evil. Maybe you guys got the labels switched. The folks who really are with Christ really are only 144,000 people quietly and unassumingly going about the business of doing unto others as they would have done to them, turning the other cheek, you know, all that stuff that, unlike homophobia, actually is in the Bible. The much more numerous group of you folks, whose main object in life seems to be the identification of motes in your neighbor's eyes so that you can loudly trumpet how Christlike you imagine this behavior makes you, are actually working for the other side. You may indeed be leaving us soon, but not to join Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven, but to follow your anti-Christ into the lake of fire.
Just saying...
Could any of them get a word in edgewise, what with Alan " God, I love to hear my voice express my obviously superior intellect in action" Keyes, there?
seevee @ 27:
I always found him to be more of a really bad Julia Child impression than anything else.
ashton @ 28:
LOL
The Repugs know they can count on the votes of the Fundies without lobbying them.
klunk @ 23:
Actually....a good portion of what has driven the ascension of this medevial stupidity is right wing economic policies driving people into economic distress.....unable to cope with their problems they throw themselves to the care of "the lord". If we can get progressive economic policies, such as a minimum wage that is a living wage into place, we will very likely find that a good number of their followers aren't quite so crazy about fundiementalism as they initially thought themselves to be.....the reason that these people constantly prosthelatize is so that they replace their lost numbers who wake up daily......generally drifiting into more liberal denominations.
V V
That smilin' harpy, Schlafly is included in my "going to dance on their graves tour when they go away" which also has Falwell, Robertson, Limbaugh, and Chenoweth as members.
Two down, three to go. Should be a fun road trip!
Anyone notice that Keyes and Cox were referred to as "Presidential Candidates"? Them publicans sure are mighty desperate!!
mudshark @ 4:
tyree @ 34:
Lord of Karma @ 13:
ROTFLMAO..............EXCELLANT
Captain Kangaroo @ 14:
Yes?
tyree @ 35:
I agree with Marcus Aurelius-the Terri Shiavo case was a tipping point for the majority of Americans. Even if they had sympathy for the parents, they didn't want the state interfering with ending the non-existence of their daughter. They understood the law, the arguments of the husband, and as the fundies became more vicious toward the husband, many could see themselves in the middle of those family dynamics. Many also recognized that the neocons pandered overtly to the fundies, halting regular business and attempting to overturn legal rulings in which they had no say. It was an over-reach of galactic proportions, and ever since then, the fundies and the neocons have had a bumpy road.
mudshark @ 36:
NO Really......this was the absolute BEST....funniest thing I've seen in a long time....Thanks
Has America declared war yet on "evangelical" fundamentalism?
Lord, I sure hope so....
You know, my neocon friends (and I do have a few I'm working on) like to remind me Islamic terrorists declared war on the U.S. on 9/11.
So I ask them, did not then right-wing "Christian" fundamentalist terrorists declare war on the U.S, when Eric Rudolph killed those doctors and set off that bomb at the '96 Olympics?
Did not then rightwing militias declare war on the U.S. when Tim McVeigh blew up the federal building in OKC?
Why aren't we dropping cluster bombs over Pensecola and rural Michigan?
And, yeah, when I ask my neocon friends these questions, they're answer's always still, "But... but... Clinton!"
They remind me of the answer to the FORTY MILLION DOLLAR question:
"Bill got a blow job!!"
Karl Bauer @ 41:
Thanks for doing that Karl......that's how we're going to get through to them.....one at a time.
I actually watched this debate. It featured questions from "former gays" and someone who asked Rudy Giuliani (who wasn't there) if it was ok for an abortionist to try to kill her 18 years ago. And every other question was asked by a father, or a priest, or a reverand.
Basically, it was the very worst part of the republican party. Needless to say, i was very scared of the power these people have over the republican party.
You can watch it here. Be warned. its pretty scary, but also kinda entertaining.
http://www.valuesvoterdebate.com/
freaktown @ 43:
Hey if they don't like America they can go somewhere else....(wasn't that some of their splugee talk)
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!...Now thier gonna feel like the dumbass's they are....YEAH...well fugum
Lord of Karma @ 13:
mudshark @ 45:
please mudshark have a little charity in your heart ! grease thier ass up before you fugem!
I can't say it enough. KEEP RELIGION OUT OF OUR POLITICS.
Two of the most moral couples I know are (1) a gay couple, (2) an atheist couple. They both act more Christian like than these so called Christians. Live and let live is my moto. What gives these so called moral Repug people the right to tell the rest of us how we are to live and think?
F**K the Christian Taliban. They can all go straight to the hell and take the family values hypocrites with them.
Oh, darn. The headline said "blowing off values voters" and I took that to mean, like, in a Monica Lewinsky way.
My bad.
Truth be Known @ 2:
Don't you think it tells you a lot about Ron Paul that he was applauded by this crowd?
So they got used? So what. They are a bunch of sheep anyway. Rarely do any 'values voters' actually individually think about their values. They are actually prime targets for an authoritarian leader. The US & the constitution was created despite these types of people, not because.
Because of 'values voters' the U.S has become a belligerent, aggressive state with WMDs and has invaded 2 countries and vying for a 3rd. Because of 'values voters' Habeas Corpus and the rule of law has been pushed back to pre-magna carta. The list can go on & on.
On the upside, it'll take them years to work out they were had.
=my denigrating 2c
I'm not sure this means what you think it means. Much as the Democratic Party publicly treats the progressive left as an embarrassment while taking their vote for granted, so too can the Republicans ignore these idiots while assuming they'll rally to their side come elections. They speak to them not by holding debates but through the media, where they are sure to let us know the next Democratic candidate hates the baby Jesus.
Gregory @ 51:
ZING! What a comeback! LOL!!!!
tyree @ 47:
would that be with 50 wieght?
damn...50 weight.........a friend of mine is dyslectic....hmmmmm?
how they hangin Tyree?.......your back in true form I see
Isn't it interesting that the one debate the GOP candidates blew off is this one held by religious wingnuts, and the one event the Democratic candidates missed was by the Democratic Leadership Council, led by Harold "Wannabe Republican" Ford. My conclusion is that the candidates of both parties, who have access to tons of poll and focus group results, know that the country is shifting to the left on almost every issue, and they do not want to waste their time kowtowing to the increasingly irrelevant right wings of their respective parties.
So, the values voters held a debate, huh?
A debate with the initials VVD.
Hmmm, the last time I saw those initials they stood for Viral Venereal Disease, which often leads to one's brain rotting.
Oh, there is a similarity.
OK - here's a reality check for all concerned:
1. the Republican Party (RP) NEVER gave a rat's ass about the Xian Fundie Tards (XFTs). Never. Not once.
2. The RP USED the XFTs as foot soldiers in their bid for power, much as the Democratic Party (DP) USES the progressives to gain power. This doesn't mean the Progressives in America are ontologically equivalent to the XFTs. Quite the contrary. However: their relationship to the power structure is nearly identical.
3. Insofar as the values of the XFTs and the RP overlapped, the RP was in a position to co-opt the XFT leadership.
4. The relationship of the XFTs and the RP go back to the late 1940s, and it is all based in racism (see Strom Thurmond's career and the development of the "Southern Strategy") That is how the RP, the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, became the home of bigoted XFTs. The depth of this racist trait can be seen today - how the RP candidates are blowing off the blacks. This is an obvious tip of the hand, and you would have to be some kind of a complete retard not to conclude that the interests of black america and the RP do not coincide at all. The RP has nothing to gain from them, and everything to gain from stroking the racism of their bible thumping XFT footsoldiers.
5. So, with the success of the Bush Junta, and Bush being an XFT, the XFT footsoldiers felt ascendant. However, they failed to notice that the rest of the Admin was straight up neocon fascist. The neocons had used the XFTs to defeat the "Rockefeller Republicans" (viz. Hagel et al) and with their ascendency are now able to shed the XFTs, similar to how the NAZI party was able to shed the brownshirts in favour of the blackshirts. However, unlike the NAZIs, the neocons didn't need to kill them - they just ignored them.
6. It is now pretty clear to large portions of the XFT community that the Bush Junta really doesn't give a flying fsck about them at all. And it is pretty clear to both the neocon and non-neocon parts of the RP, that they can no longer depend on the XFTs to do their bidding in the numbers to which they had become accustomed. So, rather than piss away resources on people they consider screwballs, the RP leadership is now working around the XFT leadership, and trying to salvage electoral power by making a bid for the hearts and minds of the American Suburban Working Class, a group of people who are often XFTs, but even when they are not XFTs, they are too freaking stupid, poorly educated, greedy, and ignorant to understand that the Bush Junta and neocons don't care about them, and hence easy pickens to vote for the RP.
7. Therefore: this shows the RP are deeply shifting strategy. They are panicked and have no idea how to proceed. The RP leadership is NOT stupid, even if their minions have a collective IQ that hovers around room temperature. Their strategy, right now, is to keep the exurban and rural vote in their pocket. Those people are fucking morons and are a big part of the 25% for Bush. Then they need to make inroads on the suburban vote, which they are presently losing and is leaning rapidly Democratic.
8. The DP needs to keep their progressive dupes in line. That the DP leadership has all the spine exhibited by insects and molluscs and have consistently caved in to the WH at every possible turn has not ingratiated them to the frustrated suburbanites, and has completely pissed off their urban progressive base. Still, they are the only game in town, thanks to the Electoral College which coughs up control over 2/3s of the gov't (Executive, who nominates the Supreme Court), so they could still pull something together, but they are so gutless and visionless, they could easily defeat themselves in 08.
So, those are the facts. The RP snubbing the XFTs is BIG news. Pay attention - the fascists are on the attack, even as weak as they are.
Deal.
Vitam Vas @ 31:
totally :-)
the only real solutions are good education, good health-care, a good economy, opportunities for growth... fulfilling all of Maslow's heirarchy of basic human needs... and they're not solutions that are accessible through sound-bites or slogans or talking points, but from progressive policies of growth through cooperative and supportive effort... which, ironically represents some of the basic desires of many "values-based" voters such as helping the poor and disenfranchised that have been exploited by the neo-cons... and runs contrary to much of the greed-based corporatism that has been running rampant for far too long (for those that may interpret this last bit as "communism"; do note that this is NOT a slur against the positive aspects of free market economics or of the importance of privately owned business... in fact, as a small business-person myself, I fully endorse individual enterprise... mine is only the result of a realistic view which accommodates the notion that we are indeed, all of us, in this together... and unlike many whom are driven by self-indulgence at the expense of others, believe that we need to support each other - and not necessarilly financially - if we are to survive as a species... which means "we" have to stop acting like "we" can force freedumb and democracy upon others and other nations with guns and violence... also, do note that "we" is an adoption of responsibility for the reckless and wanton destruction visited upon this world by the power-mongering neo-cons)
freaktown @ 43:
If I was a candidate there, I would answer," will I think that it would be pretty difficult for an abortionist to kill their child when they turn 18 but I do think the best way for an abortionist to kill their 18 year old child is to send them into Iraq so that Halliburton and blackwater can profit off their death while the oil industries help the abortionist kill more of their 18 years old children by using their brain and the Iraqi to dig up the earth so that they can steal the Iraqi oils.
And if I can elaborate on that, even when pope john Paul 2 came vocally against the abortionist killing other people 18 year old children through war for corporate interest in Iraq, even with the scream of the leader of the united Methodist church, where the abortionist attended told the abortionist that it was morally wrong for the abortionist to kill other people children in Iraq for corporate interest and oil, the abortionist didn't listen, and proceed. That abortionist is George bush and dick Cheney. So if you agree with those two abortionist for killing 18 year old fetus for corporate interest and oil, that you too are a supporter of abortion."
Dobsonism is pushing up daisies
Lord of Karma @ 13:
GOLLY this was funny!!!!:)))))
Value voters-undervalue voters-valueless voters!How about super value voters,etc.
Cronies masquerade with a potential to bite where it hurts most and rightly so adherent to the motto participants "Divide and Rule" the dumb masses with few exceptions forced by necessity to be there.
Wow! I bet every hooker (male & female) in south Florida was double booked. I would guess lots of bathroom stall foottapping also took place . I predict the free clinic will have a lot of customers in a few days. Chlamydia infection rates are higher than average in the abstinence only crowd.
Did Don Wildmon speak in tongues or roll around on the floor?
Did Roy Moore wipe his ass with the Constitution?
Phyllis Schlafly, Alan Keyes ,ugggh.
What a freak show, was there also clowns and elephants?
Jo @ 54:
If you bothered to actually watch the debate, you would have noticed that Ron Paul was actually booed by the crowd for many of his anti-war, anti-government regulation remarks.
Truth be Known @ 2:
This very fact is why I cannot support Ron Paul -- he claims himself a "Constitutionalist" but his real goal is to send the U.S. back to the 18th century. While I can find some aspects of this idea alluring, I have to accept the fact that this is not that world. He says he is against regulations of any kind, he claims to be for individual freedoms with no government interference yet he would like to throw women and doctors who participate in abortions (for whatever reason -- even the life of the mother, and in cases of rape and incest) into jail as the worst criminals, he shows up at every freakish religious right forum seeking support -- basically, this guy thinks that federal government is only here to provide military protection and the rights of those who agree with his tragically naive world view.
Ron Paul has an agenda -- business is sacrosanct and holy, they can do no wrong and government has no role in protecting the citizens from any of their misgivings (including pollution of the environment and workers rights,) and he has this bizarre allure to the wacko xtian fundamentalists because he appeals to their sense of outrage against the federal government.
I will be the first to agree that the federal government is corrupt, and the illegal Federal Reserve should be abolished -- but it's the people in the government not the system itself that has corrupted representational government at the federal level. Ron Paul would like to throw the baby out with the bathwater -- instead of seeking reforms and prosecutions for malicious manipulations by crooked politicians he chooses to use these violations against the people's trust as a forum to discredit any and all valuable progress the government has made since the writing of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
His appeal to the extremists of the religious right should be a telling sign to all about just how dangerous this seemingly benign Republican is.
Who the hell is John Cox?
a guy @ 12:
This always amazes me too. She must be at least a thousand by now.
The only interest the right-wing "values" people have is sex. This should be emphasized loudly. Then when everyone talks about the "religious people's" obsession with sex they will be so uncomfortable they will go away. Embarrass them. That will push them out. To see that they only care about sex, not even children, see comment on
randomabsurdities.wordpress.com
Remember keep giving them lots of publicity.
"Don’t go away mad, religious right; just go away."
That's good writing. And, I agree. I just hope Ron Paul wasn't one of those present.
Ronald Mirman @ 71:
just remember that the 'values voters' are the ones whio controlled the diebold and sequoia voting machines in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006. you ain't rid of them yet!
...this is pleasant news, but a drop in the bucket.
Anyone nuts enough to believe we're in a religious war is nuts enough to do immoral, unethical behavior to support said religious war (see the nice middle-aged lady who stole library books, and sent 2 checks for their face value because she didn't like the sex education taught in them).
THAT is unethical.
I'm sure the values voters have silly grins on their faces after having been blown off.
So why is the Republican Party blowing off "values", black, gay and hispanic voters?
Are they that sure that either:
A) There won't be another election?
B) They have the fix in?
C) They will never win anyway?
I hope it's C, but I'm betting on A with B in close second.
It's because the bedwetting, kool-aid drinking, Repukes have forever faked that they had values, but never truely had them.
Gollum @ 69:
I'd never heard of him either, but according to Wikipedia he was the first candidate to declare - in March 2006. I guess you can never be too early. Amazingly, he's raised $12,106.51 as of last March (that's *not* including $745,000 of his own money).
I refer to them as 'voters without values' they only vote based on blind faith.
ldzppln @ 17:
---------------
you know that's a pretty smart tactic. imagine if some of the 'not white' groups held their debates with maybe one or two candidates--big blanks for rudi mcromney and the present guy would have the floor to himself.
these candidates are pathetic. toss away a chance because you're scared of brown people.
Oh, it was a WONDERFUL debate! I didn't catch all of it but it was pure comedy. When asked about how to stop muslims from destroying the country, Keyes went off on a rant about abortion. Plus, the "speed round" where they got asked yes or no questions and pushed a button to record the answer. Talk about Pavlov. Only Ron Paul answered "incorrectly" on a few occassions. There's a bit of a write up here, if you're interested.
The Song "Why should God Bless America" was all the rage there:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/09/why_should_god_bless_america.html
I think is was written by Bin Loudin
Not one word about Ron Paul, who received loud applause throughout the night from supporters.
And Paul won the WND poll.
Don’t you think it tells you a lot about Ron Paul that he was applauded by this crowd?
If this be true.. than it really is a set up to have people wanting to go and vote for this guy... I hear people that are supposedly sick of dems being not strong enough for them and the GOP being too dumb so they think about Ron Paul..
Beware is all I can say..
Ron Paul is a freak and a danger to this nations Constitution.
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