Republican White House maybes court evangelicals toward 2016
By BILL BARROW

ATLANTA (AP) — Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have gotten much of the attention in these early days of the Republican race for president, but as they court the party's elite donors in private phone calls and meetings, a group of likely candidates to their right are just as eagerly chasing support among Christian evangelicals and social conservatives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal led a prayer rally that filled the basketball arena at Louisiana State University on Saturday. Called "The Response," organizers billed the event as a national call to pray "for a nation that has not honored God in our success or humbly called on him in our struggles."

Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson spoke and attended services this weekend at Houston's Second Baptist Church as part of the mammoth congregation's "If My People" conference, pitched as an effort to "restore the soul of America."

Carson also appeared Saturday, along with several other possible candidates that included Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, before a crowd of several hundred devoted social conservatives in Iowa, where GOP Rep. Steve King hosted his Freedom Summit. Romney and Bush did not attend.

"This is important, and it tells everybody who either is a believer or a nonbeliever what a candidate's world view is," said the Rev. Gary Moore, senior associate pastor for the Houston church that invited Carson. "Out of their world view comes everything else on every kind of issue."

Veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres, whose clients include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 candidate, said social conservatives nationally amount to just "20 to 25 percent" of Republican primary voters. But they make up a much larger share of Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses and are significant in South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary a few weeks later. To win the GOP nomination, a candidate must be "at least acceptable" to primary voters who identify first as social and religious conservatives.

The party also includes self-identified "chamber of commerce" Republicans, national security-foreign affairs hawks, tea party fiscal conservatives and libertarians. "There is obviously overlap," Ayres said. "But it's hard to quantify just where the overlap is, so no candidate can afford to be identified exclusively with one faction."

Jindal, who was raised Hindu but converted to Catholicism in college, has tried recently to marry religious conservatism with tough foreign policy. During a recent trip to Europe, Jindal drew international attention for echoing a Fox News commentator who asserted that radical Muslims have taken over some neighborhoods in Europe, a notion for which British Prime Minister David Cameron called the commentator "complete idiot." Fox later apologized, but Jindal stood by his claim, telling CNN that "radical Islam is a threat to our way of life."

At his event in Baton Rouge on Saturday, which Jindal has insisted was not a political event, the governor said, "We can't just elect a candidate to fix our country. ... We need a spiritual revival to fix our country."

At a South Carolina tea party convention earlier this month, as Cruz hammered President Barack Obama's fiscal and foreign policies, he worked in details of his relationship with his minister in Houston and prayer sessions he's held with pastors in the city. And his father, the Rev. Rafael Cruz, an evangelical pastor, spent the entire weekend huddling with activists on his son's behalf.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Jindal, Cruz and other conservatives also tout their support for Israel, aligning themselves with evangelicals who cite the Judeo-Christian scriptural account of an ancient covenant establishing Israelites as God's "chosen people."

This week, Huckabee will visit North Carolina's First Baptist Church of Charlotte. The ticketed event, which promises to draw from neighboring South Carolina, is built around Huckabee's new book, but his writings in "God, Guns, Grits and Gravy" serve as primer for the ordained Baptist minister's politics and potential campaign.

The Rev. Mark Harris, senior pastor of the Charlotte congregation that Huckabee will visit, said the notion of a Republican Party divided into the different constituencies is overblown. Harris cited his failed bid for Senate last year and noted how he went on to endorse and campaign for now-Sen. Thom Tillis, generally viewed in that primary as the business establishment candidate.

But the balance still isn't easy, as several would-be presidents in Iowa tacitly acknowledged.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Catholic from a Democratic-leaning state, isn't a favorite among most Protestant evangelicals and made sure Saturday to emphasize his personal opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But, he cautioned, "If you want a candidate who agrees with you 100 percent of the time, I'll give you a suggestion: Go home and look in the mirror. You are the only person you agree with 100 percent of the time," he said.

At the same event, Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, warned, "We don't need to spend the next two years beating each other up in the conservative tent. We need to tell America what's right with this country."

Just last week in Washington, Republican House leaders abandoned a proposal to restrict abortion after 20 weeks, popular among social conservatives for whom issues related to abortion are paramount, amid concerns that it could hurt the party with younger and female voters.

Harris, even as he called for party unity, said such moves risk alienating evangelicals, whom he argued helped cost the GOP the past two presidential elections by not voting in the general election.

"When you don't speak to our issues, you make a mistake," he said.
___

Associated Press reporters Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-01-26

Jesus wept.

Like radical Muslims, these Christian fundamentalists are deeply committed and their religion gives them a source of strength.

Like radical Muslims, these Christian fundamentalists are deeply committed and their religion gives them a source of strength.

"Christian fundamentalists are deeply committed"

Some may be sincerely motivated by their faith but among politicians, faith is usually just a tool to facilitate their deeper motivation to get elected.

And even among non-politicians, many of the so called fundamentalists have a social agenda that they claim is based on their religious beliefs, when in fact their personal religious beliefs are shaped by their social engineering program.

Otherwise if one wants to take the supposed religious right politicians seriously, one would have to believe that 90% of the Bible deals solely with abortion and gay rights.

I'm interested to see what Jeb Bush offers, I like the way he came out and said his campaign was going to be based around positivity it was a breath of fresh air from the republicans.

I'm interested to see what Jeb Bush offers, I like the way he came out and said his campaign was going to be based around positivity it was a breath of fresh air from the republicans.

I think he's means "false promises", I don't call republican lying a "breath of fresh air".

I'm interested to see what Jeb Bush offers, I like the way he came out and said his campaign was going to be based around positivity it was a breath of fresh air from the republicans.

I think he's means "false promises", I don't call republican lying a "breath of fresh air".

...and what do you call democrat lying?

Just what the country needs: a bunch of religious fanatics bent on telling others how they should live their lives.

Let the ring kissing begin.

I'm interested to see what Jeb Bush offers, I like the way he came out and said his campaign was going to be based around positivity it was a breath of fresh air from the republicans.

I think he's means "false promises", I don't call republican lying a "breath of fresh air".

...and what do you call democrat lying?

Er...... lying.

I'm interested to see what Jeb Bush offers, I like the way he came out and said his campaign was going to be based around positivity it was a breath of fresh air from the republicans.

I think he's means "false promises", I don't call republican lying a "breath of fresh air".

When the opening bell rings he will come out of the gate slinging mud just like any other politico. No politician of either party is a "breath of fresh air" Its the same old stale air recycled. A politician would sign a pact with the devil or lie to St. Peter at the pearly gates to get elected. The name of the game is to smear the opposition with so much <deleted> and hope something sticks. When the campaign starts its look into the closet of your opposition and see how many skeletons we can find. Having a mistress is number one and looking to history most powerful politicians had one or more.

I think he's means "false promises", I don't call republican lying a "breath of fresh air".

...and what do you call democrat lying?

........Imitation...............

Just a joke chuckd.....

I don't have a dog in the race

Jindal stood by his claim that he is a complete idiot?

You would not get far in the UK trying to woo any sort of churchgoer.

We left all that indoctrination behind us decades ago.

You would not get far in the UK trying to woo any sort of churchgoer.

We left all that indoctrination behind us decades ago.

I don't think it's as bad as it was say 5 years ago. The problem the Republicans have to appeal to these lemmings because that is the base. That's why the Hindu is kissing the Christian bottoms. Jindel doesn't have a prayer anyway (skin color), if fact none of them in the GOP clown car do. It will be entertaining watching them debase reason to show just how conservative they are. And, I'm praying to Baby Jesus every night Sarah Palin runs.

You would not get far in the UK trying to woo any sort of churchgoer.

We left all that indoctrination behind us decades ago.

Yes, and good on the UK, but here we are seeing something at odds with what an election is about......woo people who won't vote;

" whom he argued helped cost the GOP the past two presidential elections by not voting in the general election. "

You would not get far in the UK trying to woo any sort of churchgoer.

We left all that indoctrination behind us decades ago.

I don't think it's as bad as it was say 5 years ago. The problem the Republicans have to appeal to these lemmings because that is the base. That's why the Hindu is kissing the Christian bottoms. Jindel doesn't have a prayer anyway (skin color), if fact none of them in the GOP clown car do. It will be entertaining watching them debase reason to show just how conservative they are. And, I'm praying to Baby Jesus every night Sarah Palin runs.

I hope Palin runs.....I wish Dubbya could run again too. Pure American comedy at it's finest and a laugh a minute.......not to mention what Colbert, Jon Stewart, Letterman, and Joel McHale can do with them.

Saint Ronald of Reagan wooed them and won them. Twice.

Then he turned his back on them when he took office. Both times.

Until these guys develop Hogswarts type skills, where god lets them shoot thunderbolts etc they are otherwise powerless.

Even when they pray for rain it doesn't work, ask Rick Perry about that one.

Sarah Palin has goofed again.

Sarah Palins eccentric speech to a Republican conference in Iowa last weekend, which has been criticised even by some of her conservative supporters, has now helped a group backing Hillary Clinton to raise $50,000, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Source

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/29/catty-sarah-palin-speech-inadvertently-raises-50k-hillary-clinton

That's funny.

It's when they try to out-conservative each other that they're at their best. The clown-car debates in 2011 were great. The more they used the word kill the more applause they got.

Sarah Palin has goofed again.

Sarah Palins eccentric speech to a Republican conference in Iowa last weekend, which has been criticised even by some of her conservative supporters, has now helped a group backing Hillary Clinton to raise $50,000, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Source

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/29/catty-sarah-palin-speech-inadvertently-raises-50k-hillary-clinton

Hillary makes five times that much in a speech to a publicly endowed university.

Hillary will use any excuse to rip off the public.