World magazine--my favorite quite-conservative-but-generally-not-reactionary evangelical publication--has a cover story on John McCain's overtures to evangelical voters. It's essentially a news piece, w/o a lot of commentary, although the multiple "Some evangelicals think..."-type statements always ring oddly coming from such an ideologically movtivated pub.
Anyway, the fact that he's on the cover of this sort of magazine and in a neutral-to-positive piece inside is itself significant, given how coolly the religious right has received his candidacy (despite his tough-on-terror and anti-abortion bona fides).
Jesus Passion made present John 18 1 19 42
5 weeks ago
if giuliani supporters' argument is that national security trumps everything for conservatives, mccain detractors' argument is that immigration trumps everything for them.
ReplyDeletei think that that, combined with mccain-feingold (aka "the devil" to ultraconservatives) is probably what most continues to keep him back.
I don't think that, for religious conservatives, it's largely about the immigration thing, as many of them are themselves pretty centrist on the issue. It's about McCain-Feingold, which is unfair--not like the bill singled out conservative interest groups--and it's about the "agents of intolerance" line, which is a petty grudge about something he said long ago that is OBVIOUSLY TRUE.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm glad to see this World piece; as much as I disagree w/ many of his policy prescriptions, he's earned a proper hearing from this crowd.