In the in-tray today an apocalyptic, adjective-crammed appeal to support the Gingrich campaign. It began as follows:
Dear Conservative:
In 1964, Ronald Reagan told conservatives that this was a time for choosing. Faced with a radical, progressive President who would weaken America abroad and at home, they could either fight to preserve America as the last, best hope on earth, or consign their children to a thousand years of darkness.
This year is another such time for choosing. We can either nominate a timid Massachusetts moderate Republican to take on a secular socialist who threatens to turn us into a nation like the decrepit Republics of Western Europe, or we can nominate a bold Reagan conservative who will take the fight to Barack Obama in the Fall. Will you join me?
Uh, no (there are others who will pose a more effective challenge to the Democrats), but it’s entertaining to see “secular” up there with the other scare-words.
Mm-hm. Entirely too many conservatives I know seem to think that “godless liberal” is a redundant phrase.
i guess i would vote Huntsman, he appears to be a better candidate altogether, not conservative enough for republican voters though. I dont know what to make of Ron Paul…
And perhaps that “secular socialist” is a redundancy?
Well, according to a recent poll, 43% of Americans think God helps Tim Tebow win football games…
Annoying, isn’t it?
Though reading this from the other side of the pond, that bit about “decrepit Republics of Western Europe” also irritates me a bit.
Wouldn’t most Americans – even those on the right, be happy for the USA to have Germany’s unemployment rate and Iceland’s life expectancy?
Not to mention Italy’s food…
‘Secular’ here just means ‘social liberal’.
The bright white line separating a social liberal and a social conservative is that liberals are Epicureans, and think that human welfare or thriving consists in pleasure good pain bad, and the conservatives are Aristotelians, who think that virtue is where human well being lies, virtue good, vice bad.
That atheism and Epicureanism go together and Aristotelianism and religion go together doesn’t seem to be an unfathomable mystery to me.
Newt Gingrich: A stupid man’s idea of smart.
******
Of course God “helps” Tebow win. Not in the sense of intervening in the outcome, but in terms of inspiring Tebow, personally, to do his best. Often inspiration+perspiration don’t work, but many athletes are religious for a reason. Not sure, but I think it’s a kind of fatalism that’s endemic to religion.
Superstition is rife in professional sports. My guess would be that so much of what happens on the field or the court is dictated by dumb luck that athletes turn to belief to reconcile themselves to the inevitability of failure. (E.g., a .300 hitter only succeeds three in ten times.) So even if it’s as “trivial” as the taboo against stepping on the third base line on your way to the outfield, they believe it helps avoid defeat or personal failure. I doubt anyone playing sports for a living is much concerned with correlation, let alone causation, between faith and performance.
Gingrich, in one of his other hilarious ads, also pointed out the fact that Romney spoke one sentence of French. No, I am not joking. I’m just waiting for this fat windbag to call it quits. Ron Paul is doing well enough to take more votes away from Santorum in the primaries. We don’t need Newt.
If I’m a campaign strategist for Gingrich I’m playing the numbers game. Your only (and very long) shot at the nomination is to be the conservative alternative to Romney. Your morality has already been questioned in the campaign.
Well, let’s just say my campaign mails wouldn’t be aimed at the five secular conservatives out there who don’t want Romney or Paul. The Megachurch God squad is all that’s left to win over (Santorum isn’t that great a match really, he’s a Catholic and from the Northeast).
Electoral marketing is as depressing as commercial marketing, often more so because there is no price in politics for gaining a niche market.