Bluff Or Bust?: Religious Right Seeks To Cop A Plea From The GOP
Perkins explained that no one in the Religious Right really wants a third party; it’s just that those nutty Republicans keep playing footsie with Giuliani!
The Religious Right threat to back a third party in 2008 is looking more and more like the old “good cop/bad cop” routine.
Viewers of police dramas know how this works: Good cop tells the suspect that he really wants to be his friend, hoping to win a confession by simple conversation. Bad cop, meanwhile, is always threatening to get physical. The two play mind games with the suspect in a type of psychological warfare that can make for entertaining viewing on cop shows.
“Bad cop” Dobson started things off, as “The Wall of Separation” reported previously, by announcing the third party threat. He gave the story to The New York Times for maximum exposure.
A few days later, Perkins took on the role of “good cop.” In an e-mail to supporters, he explained that no one in the Religious Right really wants a third party; it’s just that those nutty Republicans keep playing footsie with Giuliani!
There is “no real desire nor are there active plans to create a third party,” Perkins wrote. But he quickly added, “What was agreed upon was what could be called a statement of principle, to the effect that if both of the major parties nominate a pro-abortion-rights candidate we will consider supporting a third-party candidate…. I do think it is important that our movement draw a line that we refuse to cross.”
Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association quickly rushed in with more “bad cop.” He told the right-wing Washington Times, “Every six months before an election, Republicans are our best friends, and six days after the election, they don’t even know us.”
Wildmon then added, “Here’s one thing I’ll say about Republicans: They may not win with us, but they cannot win without us. The leadership needs to think seriously and long about that proposition.”
It’s pretty hard to take Wildmon’s claim of being ignored seriously, given that under President George W. Bush, the Religious Right has won the power to screen federal judicial nominees, two right-wing Supreme Court justices, millions of dollars under the “faith-based” initiative, “abstinence-only” sex education in public schools, a host of restrictions on stem-cell research, new curbs on abortion and a Justice Department that lives to do its bidding – but we know from experience that the Religious Right can never really be satisfied.
So what’s going on here? It’s easy to argue that the Religious Right is bluffing. The threat to back a third party may be simply that – a threat. It also remains to be seen if Dobson, Perkins, Wildmon, etc. could take many of their followers with them. (One recent poll did indicate that 27 percent of Republican voters would not back the party if Giuliani is nominated.)
Giuliani for his part, is trying to do an end-run around the Religious Right’s leadership by taking his case directly to the activists. He recently appeared on TV preacher Pat Robertson’s CBN, where he talked about how much he prays and said he feels sorry for atheists. (“But I think in a democracy and in a government like ours, my religion is my way of looking at God and other people have other ways of doing it, and some people don’t believe in God,” he said. “I think that’s unfortunate. I think their life would be a lot fuller if they did, but they have that right.”)
In short, the picture remains unfocused but might get clearer over the next few months. Stay tuned.