Really Iowa?

[Gilly]

Fido, I'm from Minnesota. Midwestern FOT's are rare unless they are from Chicago!

Putting it on the table, I'm a Christian that grew up in a Baptist home and I work for a religious radio station. I consider myself non-denominational but whatever. But, what confuses me most about the Christian right, Bush, Huckabee and all the rest is that they are running my faith through the mud and giving everyone the wrong idea of what being a Christian represents. What their supporters don't seem to understand is that non-Christians aren't just apathetic about Christianity now, they hate it with a passion. I really thought that people were starting to see through the Christian right's lies but today showed me that it's no better today than it was when Bush was elected. It's disgusting.

[A.M. Thomas]

What about the fact that "a black man with a 'Muslim' middle name won in 95% white Iowa"?  There were twice as many Democrat voters than Republicans.

I can be pretty cynical, but this made me happy.  Know when to be positive.

[Fido]

Yeah, an African-American man winning the Iowa Caucus soundly is incredibly inspiring.  And there were some 220,000 voters on the Democratic side (up from about 125,000 in 2004) but only 114,000 on the Republican side.  It seems pretty clear that these Democratic candidates are a strong field and are giving people reasons to participate when they might have decided in the past to blow it off.  The Republican attendance tonight looks anemic by comparison.

Gilly:  I'm a Lutheran, and I feel like maybe you do -- that evangelical conservative Christian Republicans espouse a brand of Christianity that I find rather foreign.  I don't get it. But indeed, Christianity has been conflated with conservative, evangelican Christian Coalition politics, and it's no wonder that a lot of people are completely turned off.  The thing is -- they vote.  Witness how well that worked out tonight in Iowa.  And it should be a lesson for the Democrats (who I think have been learning what they need to do over the last few years).

[Chris L]

[Omar]

Huckabee's son is Uncle Buck?  That's pretty cool.

[buffcoat]

Huckabee's son is Uncle Buck?  That's pretty cool.

Buck Melanoma... Mr. Mole...

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Huckabee's son is Uncle Buck?  That's pretty cool.

Buck Melanoma... Mr. Mole...

Could someone with the technical skills please replace the Jimmy Dean sausage in that video with this picture?  So then we can spread it virally?  Puh-leeze?

I'm actually pretty psyched about the Iowa results.  Any bad day for the political status quo is a good day in my book.  Clearly the Obama thing is awesome (even though my poor sister, a congressional aide, is banking on a job in the Clinton White House).  And maybe it's because in New York I deal with nasty insufferable rich people all the time but rarely encounter Christian bigots, but I'll take the true believer Baptists over the Club for Growth Repspublicans any day.  I think - having lived under Giuliani and been arrested a couple of times - he's the most dangerous candidate in the field.  I'm not naive enough to think that Huckabee really cares about the poor (how else are you supposed to run Arkansas), and it's disappointing that he's backed off of his "maybe let's not put all the immigrants in concentration camps" stance, but it demonstrates that even the most conservative voters are no longer particularly passionate about Reaganomics.  Though we'll see what happens after February 5.

[folksnake]

More proof, as if we needed it, that vertical stripes can work only so much magic when it comes to slimming. And elbow patches? On a shirt? Can't let anyone who thinks this looks OK in the White House.

Completely seriously--my personal litmus test any more is the candidates' stance on evolution, it's first on my checklist. What's astonishing is that anyone in the races actually gets checked off--like Huckabee (Tancredo and Brownback slithered back into the ooze a while ago).

[Gilly]

One thing I think we also need to look at is why the Christian right exists. The U.S. has changed so much socially in the past 20 years and not in the direction most evangelical Christians approve of. It's only logical that they want to reverse that trend. I don't think a good portion of the people who vote for candidates like Huckabee actually want their religion to be mixed with politics but it's their only way to speak out against a country that's rapidly changing.

[A.M. Thomas]

One thing I think we also need to look at is why the Christian right exists. The U.S. has changed so much socially in the past 20 years and not in the direction most evangelical Christians approve of. It's only logical that they want to reverse that trend. I don't think a good portion of the people who vote for candidates like Huckabee actually want their religion to be mixed with politics but it's their only way to speak out against a country that's rapidly changing.

Xenophobia!

[Gilly]

I don't think it's a fear of people, it's fear of a foreign culture. I think a good majority of Americans feel out of place in the today's culture.

[TL]

Huckabee's "Mitt Romney" moment - his wife is clearly choking that dog to death!
Look at that!  Just pinching his wind-pipe!
With a SMILE on her face!!

[Chris L]

Huckabee's "Mitt Romney" moment - his wife is clearly choking that dog to death!
Look at that!  Just pinching his wind-pipe!
With a SMILE on her face!!

Sorry but animal cruelty is the son's specialty:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzy-shuster/huckabees-son-and-his-hi_b_77359.html

[Beth]

Horrifying.

[TL]

Huckabee's "Mitt Romney" moment - his wife is clearly choking that dog to death!
Look at that!  Just pinching his wind-pipe!
With a SMILE on her face!!

Sorry but animal cruelty is the son's specialty:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzy-shuster/huckabees-son-and-his-hi_b_77359.html

 
 

Jeez, Louise!  I was just kidding, but...  that's horrible!