Via The Corner, the latest from Creationist Tim Pawlenty:
Pawlenty also made a strong pitch for the support of the religious right. “God is in charge,” he said, criticizing the “naysayers who try to crowd out God.” If God is “good enough for the Founding Fathers, it should be good enough for us.”…
…To wrap up his address, Pawlenty appealed to the tea-party movement, calling its critics “brie-eating” elite from “Ivy League schools” who don’t like “Sam’s Club Republicans” who “actually like shopping at places like Wal-Mart.”
Is brie the only cheese these people know? Can’t one of them, just once, maybe mention Camembert? St. Andre?
On a serious note, it’s interesting that Pawlenty should be trying to incite class warfare within his own party, given that inciting class warfare is what certain segments of the right always accuse the left of doing. Only in Pawlenty’s case it appears to be a social/cultural/educational/religious class warfare as opposed to the financial class warfare so beloved of the left.
This strain of anti-intellectualism (I use the term in its broadest sense) is going to do Republicans/conservatives much more harm than good.
I don’t care if Pawlenty is a creationist. Ron Paul is one as well. I care only that they be economic conservatives and they can get enough traction to get elected.
As long as we’re not talking Young Earth Creationism, I don’t get too upset. I don’t think one can be both an evolutionist and theist in any sort of intellectually coherent manner. These God-references, though, sound like low-brow pandering, and the crack about France plays to EXACTLY the sort of thinking that fried the GOP in 2006 and 2008.
Does anyone LIKE shopping at Walmart? The crowds drive me batty.
Seems like Pawlenty feels the need to position himself in that way to have a shot at the 2012 nomination. Whether he believes it or not, it’s obviously pandering via soundbyte.
If Palin ran it would probably suck the air right out of whatever support he could gain with this stuff. Ironically, didn’t Pawlenty turn down the Veep nomination which paved the way for Palin?
Personally, I think Pawlenty has just taken himself out. His instincts aren’t much better than the Washington Libs he is unwisely mocking.
I have just done a post on the logic of a regime which really believes that God is in charge and is willing to act on it. The US that the Founders created is a direct affront to all that.
US politics is divided into two Parties who each accuse the other of “not getting” the American Constitution, and they are both correct (as Steve Horwitz pointed out recently).
“alling its critics “brie-eating” elite from “Ivy League schools” who don’t like “Sam’s Club Republicans” who “actually like shopping at places like Wal-Mart.””
Well I don’t eat brie (hate the stuff, along with all the exotic “elite” foods). But he is right, I don’t much like Sam’s Club Republicans, on a social level. But as for voting with them and espousing the same conservative principles, I’m fine with that. As for respecting the fact that they’re patriotic, productive, tax-paying citizens, I can do that as well.
People don’t need to hang out together on the weekends to be political allies.
But Pawlenty’s whole point appears to be that there are two kinds of Republicans/conservatives, and they can’t be political allies because they have nothing in common in terms of religion, culture, education, or social practices.
I’m somewhat inclined to agree with Kurt. Politics is a matter of choices – and frequently those choices are less than appetizing. Theoretically, perhaps very theoretically (some of the other stuff the governor has been coming out with has been less than encouraging), Pawlenty could still be a candidate to go for *despite* his Creationism. Neverthless the fact that Pawlenty has chosen to identify himself in this manner is an interesting political signifier and well worth noting…
@Andrew Stuttaford
He’s trying to make himself into a male Sarah Palin, it seems.
Did Pawlenty win the governorship of Minnesota with this kind of thing or has he reinvented himself as a religious conservative just for the GOP nomination race?
@Andrew Stuttaford
Those of you who are religious right should take note. I’m as hard core “Ayn Rand” libertarian you’re ever going to find and I don’t believe in any concept of sexual morality one bit.
However, if your candidates are as “economically conservative” as I am AND they have no problem with the development of anti-aging biotechnology, that is, where we get to live forever young (as long as it does not involve the use of embryos), then I’m 100% behind them. I have said this several times before and some of you seem to want to pick a bone with me.
There are two conditions:
One, I am “economically conservative (I’m libertarian, What can I say?). This means, lower taxes, less regulation, less government regulation of my life and my business.
Two, I am into radical life extension. I am as passionate about this as I am about economic freedom. Yes, I believe it is possible to live forever young and I think the technology to make this happen will emerge in the next 30 years. A politician does not have to be “pro life extension”. They just have to respect our right to pursue it and not create bureaucratic or legal roadblocks in the development and commercialization of such by private parties. This is a perfectly reasonable position to have and any argument against it is illegitimate.
As long as a Christian right politician has no problem with these two points, I can back them to the hilt. You know, Ron Paul is as much of a Christian as Mike Huckabee. The difference is that Ron Paul believes in free markets whereas Mike Huckabee is a fascist.
The whole Ivy League and brie thing looks like somebody told Pawlenty to give a populist speech so he looked up the buzzwords and put them in. Perhaps with more time he could have found space for Joe Sixpack and Georgetown cocktail parties.
I’m theoretically open to supporting a Creationist. There’s always a hypothetical opponent that’s worse. In practice it tends to be a dealbreaker. We have to evaluate the judgment of our candidates, their ability to reach correct conclusions from the facts of the universe. If your conclusions preclude something as obviously, sweepingly correct as the common descent of all terrestrial life, including humans, you’ve got a lot to overcome with me.
I’m in agreement with the general thrust of the posts here. People who believe the earth is 5000 years old give me the hives, but a general belief in creationism is okay, if coupled with free markets and a strong belief that America (and Britain and Australia and Israel, etc) have the right to do whatever is necessary to defeat jihad and expunge it from our shores. Candidates are never perfect and even the sainted Ron Paul has some, ahem, less-than-flattering ideological baggage.
I don’t sweat the Christian stuff, as its small potatoes in a world of Sharia, honor killings and fecal jihad. If you don’t understand the genius of Darwin, that’s okay; I’m happy to possess this knowledge and I can live with your ignorance, as long as you don’t force it on my kids.
The anti-elite thing bothers me a bit, not just because of its anti-intellectual side. I like opera and good wine; British TV (the older stuff) and French food. I don’t like that my patriotism is somehow inextricably linked to NASCAR and chili dogs. Wallmart provides a much-needed economical source of basic food-stuffs and other things, but this cannot be a conservative litmus test. I once asked a Wallmart employ if they had any pesto. You should have seen the look on his face. I might just as well have asked him if he were interested in sodomy.
The problem with the religious right is they are not tied to to limiting governments power as much as they are to wielding it for their interests. Because of this a politician can say the right things, use the right code words and phrases and gain their support. Still you got to go with the voting blocs you got and there aren’t enough secular conservatives to make a decent sized Amway convention if you got them all in one place.
“The problem with the religious right is they are not tied to to limiting governments power as much as they are to wielding it for their interests.”
True enough, but you could say that about any group. The “religious right” found a champion in Ronald Reagan, and while his tenure was far from perfect, he did manage to turn the country in the right direction after the economic insanity (and appeasement) of Carter. So the two things — religious right agenda and smaller government — are not necessarily at odds with each other.
And of course you’re right about secular conservatives; we’ve got almost as much power as Log Cabin Republicans.
From Commentary’s blog, Contentions, on Tim Pawlenty:
I’m not the only one who noticed that Tim Pawlenty has an authenticity problem.”When I read that the governor ‘appealed to the tea-party movement, calling its critics a ‘brie-eating’ elite from ‘Ivy League schools’ who don’t like ‘Sam’s Club Republicans’ who ‘actually like shopping at places like Wal-Mart,′ I thought just one thing: The guy’s a phony. And patronizing, too. Good grief.” Yeah, but it’s only 2010.
@Don Kenner
I think the religious right/Nascar/Walmart crowd WOULD like to make those things into a litmus test.
In an interview with Tom Brokaw, Pawlenty seemed to identify himself as an ID proponent rather than as a YEC. He could have been waffling for the occasion. I think I recall that he said that the teaching of creationism in schools should be left to local option.
One reason not to worry about this kind of stuff is that the religious right is less likely to want to force their views on you. The NASCAR crowd might not like brie, but you don’t see them trying to ban it. By contrast, the left does want to ban health insurance companies, car companies, ect. from doing all sorts of things they don’t like.
When the left wins elections, they raise taxes, regulate businesses into bankruptcy, refuse to engage foreign threats, pass stupid treaties, and appoint judges who ignore the constitution. When the Christian right wins, they ban gambling and buying beer on Sundays. One is clearly worse than the other.
That being said, I do find Pawlenty’s anti-intellectual stance to be annoying, and counterproductive in the long run. The problem isn’t that people running things are elites; the problem is that they are liberal elites.
PS: David Brooks had an absolutely awful article recently basically saying, “Remember the good old days when rich frat boys ran everything? Now you have to be smart to get into the elite, and connections don’t matter as much. And weren’t institutions run better then?” Read the article, if you have an empty stomach. My favorite part was when he said that government transparency was bad because now people don’t trust the government as much. It’s hard to even know where to start on that one.
I’ve actually bought Brie at Wal-Mart.