Faithful Democrats
10:53AM
– Ballroom Part 9
I’ve never met Tony Perkins in person, so I can’t vouch for
what kind of person he is to hang out with. That said, from what I can tell the
guy has a HUGE ego. Every point he makes is accompanied by some story of
something great he’s done. And not in the “I’m running for office and trying to
convince you to vote for me” kind of way, but rather in the “I really like
being on stage and everyone paying attention to me” kind of way. There are plenty of these types at every
single point on the political spectrum, so it’s nothing new. Still, Perkin’s
ego makes it hard for me to stay attentive.
Before I have to
leave the summit for the day, here are some additional notes.
-Tony Perkins called Hugo Chavez “the devil,” thereby repeating
the Venezuelan president’s very words from a few days earlier. Nice comeback, Tony. You’d do great on an
episode of “Yo Momma.” The dead horse is clearly visible from where I’m
sitting.
-Dobson makes a good point about the context the war against
radical Islam, noting that even if only 4-5% of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims
sympathize with, would aid, or would participate in terrorist groups, that’s
still an army of roughly 50 million people. Dobson is quick to note that he
has great respect for peaceful Muslims. Tough to tell if he’s sincere or
just covering his bases. Either way, his point about the math of even a small
percentage of extremists among a vast population isn’t unreasonable.
-Apparently, none of the three men on stage like PETA or the
city of San Francisco. Awww, come on guys! Don’t like the sour dough bread?
-Sears believes the ultimate goal of the “homosexual agenda”
is likely the complete dissolution of marriage altogether. Ok then.
Ok everybody, it’s now 11:15AM and time for me get some lunch
and head back to my 9-5 job. It’s been an interesting and sometimes enlightening
four hours today. Tomorrow, I’ll be here even longer and will be doing more in
the way of talking with various summit attendees. I’ll also try to mix it up by
taking a closer look at the piles of print materials available all over the
place. There’s a lot to take in and I need tonight to look over all the stuff I’ve
collected today. Thanks for stopping by today, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
10:45AM
– Ballroom Part 8
Dobson yields the mic to Alan Sears, who cranks up the
rhetoric and hostility by declaring that the “homosexual agenda is on a
collision course with religious freedom.” The audience responds with enthusiasm
to his “us vs. them” sentiment. Apparently, gay militias are coming to take
over our towns and homes across the country. Who knew?
Sears is, like the aforementioned speakers, a little upset
with Hugo Chavez, though at this point the issue feels beaten to death. A guy
who’s less than stable and the president of a country that Missouri could
successfully invade came to the U.N. and talked some smack. Is this really what
you want to be complaining about during a crucial strategic gathering of your
most influential and supportive followers? This guy has a lot of elections to
win in less than two months. Why spend 10 minutes of your limited stage time
attacking a guy who in no way, shape, or form has anything to do with your
fight against the “homosexual agenda” or abortion? If President Bush were on
the ballot in November, then maybe I could understand the ruckus. But since he’s
not (and since most of the people in the room aren’t entirely happy with the
president to begin with), it seems like a waste of an opportunity to motivate
your base in a rare face-to-face setting.
10:40AM
– Ballroom Part 7
Echoing the words of Gary Baur, Dobson launches into a
rant against the Republican Party, or, more specifically, the RNC and its
current group of elected officials. Dobson says he’s “disappointed” with how
Republicans have not produced the results/changes they promised before the 2004
elections. He notes his firm belief that liberal alternatives will always be
worse, but his message could hardly be construed as a call for religious
conservatives to flock to the polls on behalf of the GOP in November. Needless
to say, I’m encouraged.
Dobson’s next target is the media, but it’s not clear
exactly why he’s upset. Does he want more coverage of certain issues? Does he
find the media to be biased against religious conservatives? Or is simply upset
they won’t don’t repeat his same messages? I’m guessing some combination of all
three.
I find it ironic Dobson is upset with media coverage,
considering he, alone reaches 220 million listeners per day. I’m not sure how
much more “mass media” he could be. Ultimately, he comes off as just whining
that the media organizations don’t say exactly what he wants them to. This is
Dobson’s (and, to some degree, all of the conservative religious base’) biggest
weakness: an inability to understand or accept that other people will see the
world through different eyes. Pluralism is a concept Dobson just doesn’t seem
to get, and in a country of nearly 300 million Americans (which is part of an
ever-expanding and interconnected world), I’m not sure how successful a
strategy than can be in the long term.
10:31AM – Ballroom
Part 6
What's clear about Dobson, Perkins,
and Sears is they are in lock-step with each other. Despite the fact their job
descriptions aren't especially similar, there's no doubt they all have the same
focus and goals in mind. Dobson preaches via the airwaves, Perkins facilitates
the base of support through the FRC, and Sears is a legal mastermind. But as
they sit and talk amongst themselves no stage, the "team" concept I
keep mentioning is pretty evident.
It would be easy to dismiss what I'm
saw on stage as simply a well-rehearsed reiteration of the mantra's,
catchphrases, and opinions I've already heard from speakers and members of the
audience alike. Which it is. But these men have also been exceedingly
successful at selling limited issues platform to tens of millions of Americans.
Maybe there's a lesson here for FaithfulDemocrats and related organizations.
I'm not sure.
Could it be that the key to success is keeping the
platform simple, identifying key angles of attack (eg: judicial, mass media,
base of support, congressional allies, etc), and then repeatnig the same
message over and over ad nauseum?
10:12AM – Ballroom Part
5
One of the very cool things the Chicago Bulls did during the
1990’s for their home games was to turn off all the lights in the stadium except
for a spotlight and a bunch of strobe lights, and then introduce the home team
against a background of pulsating music. Announcer Ray Clay would start low and
then work his way up to a howl as he called out the names of Michael Jordan
and Co. right as the music hit its apex. Just Google around for it, it will
be five minutes of your life well spent.
In any event, between the Bulls and the guy who started the “let’s
get ready to ruuuuumbbllllllee!!” bit, the last 15 years has seen virtually
every professional and amateur sports team trying to create its own introductory
magic. This makes sense. You want to psych your fans up and also make your superstars
feel loved. Done correctly, it’s a win-win. Done poorly, it feels cheesy,
forced, and lame.
So when the Family Research Council, a group not exactly
known for being on the cutting edge of being hip, tried to introduce three of
its very biggest names for a “panel” discussion, just how smoothly do you think
it went over?
Yes, as you may have already heard by now, the FRC trotted
out James Dobson (host of the widely broadcast “Focus on the Family” radio
program, Tony Perkins, and Alan Sears (president and CEO of the Alliance
Defense Fund) to the theme song from “Rocky.” I think it’s important you all
give me credit for not totally bursting into tears of laughter and blowing my
cover. Seriously. The unintentional comedy of it was immeasurable. Three guys
with massive war-chests and a media reach of more than 220 million listeners
daily walking out to the ultimate underdog music. It doesn’t get more
ridiculous than that. I’m pretty sure Burgess Meredith was rolling over in his
grave. Topping it off was a record-bad performance of lighting effects, which involved
not turning the lights down (an absolute must) and flashing what appeared to be
ambulance lights on stage.
Of course, the audience totally ate it up. Loved it to
death. Hey, like I said, they’re team players. Give ‘em credit for consistency.
As the three of them settled into their chairs, everyone sat
back down, ready to hear what their leaders had to offer….
9:53AM – Ballroom Part
4
Next is someone we all ought to be paying very close
attention to: Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. The guy has been a highly
successful and popular Republican governor in a place where the state
legislature is 137% liberal democratic. It takes serious skills to do what he’s
done, and should he run the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, it
should shock no one if he’s able to pull it out. The guy is bright, articulate,
well-informed, handsome, funny, good on his feet, likeable, and he’s got
support in the Northeast. Basically, he’s democratic strategist’s worst
nightmare.
Right off the bat, Romney differentiates himself from other
speakers we’ve heard thus far. He touches on a range of public policy issues,
ranging from economic competition with China, to education policy, to health
care, to energy independence. But then he smoothly transitions into talking
about the one thing, he believes, that connects all those issues.
Culture.
He argues that culture is the basis of western civilization for
both religious and non-religious peoples, and that radical cultural shifts can
have a (presumably negative) domino effect on other aspects of society.
Romney says the gay-marriage debate is not, as many believe,
about the adult rights. To Romney, marriage is primarily about raising and
nurturing children. I, in part, disagree with that sentiment, but at least he’s
the first person today to give an extended explanation of his position.
He ends by calling for a federal amendment defining marriage
as a union between a man and a woman. He’s careful to say he strongly opposes
intolerance and bias of any kind
All in all, it’s an impressive and clever performance. As a
stump speech, he’s connected with those in the audience in two crucial ways.
First, by speaking primarily about culture and how the same-sex marriage debate
plays into it, he’s connected with the audience as being one of them. Second,
by showing of his electable attributes and breadth of policy knowledge, he’s
made it clear that he is, in fact, the horse they should back in 2008.
9:18AM – Ballroom Part
3
After a nice introduction from FRC President Tony Perkins,
Congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) takes the stage. Pence is a three term congressman
and the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which is a group of the
most conservative U.S. House Republicans. He’s known for describing himself as "a
Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order."
Right off the bat, Pence attacks media organizations for
their coverage of the Terry Schiavo case and of stem cell research. It’s not
clear to me whether he’s upset that the media did not cover the Schiavo issue
enough, or that they portrayed the issue in the wrong light. Regardless, he
gets a big applause from the room. Like I said, everyone here is pretty much in
step with one another.
I’m starting to get impatient for some discussion about
policies and strategies (other than those dealing abortion and gay marriage. Yes,
we get it. You want constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and
abortion.). Low and behold, Congressman Pence reads my mind perfectly, and
dramatically declares that he wants to discuss “the most pressing policy issue
in a generation….illegal immigration.”
Pence begins by saying that the Bible commands us to treat “aliens”
(we’re assuming he means “illegal,” not extraterrestrial) with respect because,
at one point in history, we were all aliens. Ok, fair enough, seems reasonable.
Maybe Pence is going to be expand upon thus by referring to the multitude of
passages in the Bible commanding all of man (and woman) to love one another, despite
our differences.
Nope.
Instead, Pence says he’s got a four-point plan to defeat
illegal immigration and
“preserve our culture.” Whaaaa???? Didn’t he just say the
Bible calls for the EXACT opposite response?? Am I missing something here?
Here’s the breakdown of Pence’s four-point plan:
1.)
Enhance border
patrol/safety. Pence quotes Reagan (you can tell who the real president to
these people is) saying “a nation without borders is not a nation,” which is
about as nonsensical as saying a globe with edges is not a globe.
2.)
Reject amnesty
in any form. Interestingly, he quotes
the inscription below the Statue of Liberty about “give me your tired, your
poor, your huddles masses” to prove his point. Right.
3.)
Create a new
guest-worker program requiring people to learn and speak the English language.
Yes, just as his forefathers were required to do when they came emigrated to
America.
4.)
Fines and
penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. This last point is at
least worth discussing, though Pence omits the significant economic
complexities of the issue. As a result, it’s hard to know if he’s advocating
this last point because he thinks it’s the moral thing to do or because it’s a
sound economic policy.
Pence wraps up his talk by saying he
and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson have developed the “Hutchinson-Pence plan”
(clever name), which calls for private sector oversight over American immigration
practices. Pence says the plan also calls for his aforementioned guest-worker
program (on a two-year basis) and requirement that guest-workers pass an English
literacy and verbal communication test.
Looks like he means business….
9:15AM – Ballroom Part
2
Father Frank Pavone steps up to the mic to lead everyone in
the invocation. Everything is going smoothly until Pavone says that God is on
the side of religious conservatives. Of course, I’m likely the only one in the
audience who finds the remark somewhat shortsighted, so no biggie.
Next is the Presentation of Colors by the U.S. Marine Corps.
If anyone out there have never seen this ceremony done, go check it
out. I’m
sure there’s a YouTube clip that will do, though it’s much better to
see in person. You don’t have to agree with what our military is
currently doing, or
with those lead our military. It’s entirely about the discipline and
training
these men and women go through to become the most elite soldiers in the
world. I’m
telling you, it’s a goosebumps moment.
Bethanie Swendsen then belts out a soulful rendition of the
national anthem that’s so good you can feel that the audience wants to
go nuts and give her a huge applause. Instead, however, we’re supposed to wait
until the Marines have marched out of the room. Major mistake. It totally kills
the emotional high everyone had coming off the final notes of the National
Anthem, so the applause given when the Marines finally exit is significantly
less than what it would have been had we been allowed to applaud earlier. I don’t
know how the summit organizers botched this one. Anyone who has even been to a
professional sporting event knows how to do this. Also, can we please reserve
Ms. Bethanie Swendsen to sing the National Anthem at next year’s NBA All-Star
Game?
9:05AM – Ballroom Part
1
We’re a bit behind schedule here but nothing terrible. People
are now slowing making their way to the massive ballroom, which seats
(guesstimating) around 1,500. The good times get going when the MC for the
morning session announces that, FYI, “prayer will be covering the entire event”
in the same manner and voice a sports commentator might tell us a football game
broadcast is sponsored by Nabisco. Making this moment even better is the fact that
the MC looks like Kyle from Tenacious D, but with 20 years and 40 pounds added on. To
top it off, several attendees around me appear visibly encouraged by the good
news. These have definitely been the most entertaining 12 seconds of my day thus
far.
8:52AM – Gary Bauer
Part 4
The Gary Bauer experiment comes crashing back to earth when,
in a twelve minute window, Jack’s brother says that:
-Liberals want to “compromise” with killers of children.
-Feminism is a form of radicalism and is unhealthy for
American families
-Liberals “hate women” just as Islamo-fascists do
-America will lose the war against terrorists because of our
country’s policies on same-sex marriage and abortion.
-All American Muslims should be polled (involuntarily, it
seems) to see if they sympathize with Islamo-fascists (cue: Joseph McCarthy
voice).
-Many European cities are on their way to falling to the “armies
of radical Islam.”
Needless to say, Jack would not be proud of his brother at
the moment. Things finally get overtly political when, during Q & A,
Bauer suggests America may need a third political party. Much to my
surprise,
Bauer and many in the room are pretty upset with the Republican Party
for not following
through on promises it made during the 2004 campaigns to deliver key
pieces of social legislation and more conservative federal judges.
Bauer laments that, if
forced to choose between the cash flows of Big Business and morals of
religious
conservatives, many Republicans have consistently been siding with Big
Business.
Bauer says religious conservatives ought to give Republicans
more time to get their act together, if for no other reason than he despises
the platforms offered by Liberals. No shocker there, but what really is notable
is that he has defined the religious conservative movement as being about a
platform of issues, rather than the base of the Republican Party.
8:40AM – Gary Bauer
Part 3
Finally we get the first buzzword of the day, “islamo-fascists.”
As you would expect, Bauer is now on the topic about the war against terrorism,
asserting that we are in a struggle for their survival of our (American) “culture
and its freedoms.” Bauer angrily addresses the social inequalities and
atrocities he sees in parts of the Muslim world (eg: women treated as being inferior
to men; children with bombs on their chest being sent into crowds). Both
speaker and audience are particularly upset with the ways terrorists use
children as “weapons of mass murder.” Bauer says Islamic fanaticism is “a
movement that hates children.” He loses his emotions briefly and has to pause,
and the room falls silent. I have to admit, I am impressed by the sincerity of
Bauer and his supporters in the room. Were I to hear this rhetoric in a public
setting or as part of a media soundbite, the jaded side of me (and others, I
imagine) might assume Bauer was simply “spinning” the story. But we’re in a
locked room with no cameras that is full of people who already are on Bauer’s
side. He could do a lot with this moment, but he’s choosing to talk about the
sadness and anger he has about the loss of child life to terrorism in the
Middle East. Even the most hardened cynic would have to acknowledge that Bauer
genuinely is moved on this matter.
8:35AM – Gary Bauer
Part 2
Things get interesting when Bauer invokes President Reagan’s
speech about America being the “shining city upon the hill.” It’s clear the
speech resonates with those in the room, and equally clear Bauer wants to hit
upon this topic. Bauer notes that he first heard Reagan give the speech during
a televised address in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964, and that he
continued to use the same speech for more than 20 years. Bauer cracks a joke
about how he and other aids pulled Reagan aside at one point during the president’s
second term to say he needed some new material after two decades, and
how Reagan replied by deadpanning, “but it’s a good speech. Find me a new
audience and I’ll give you a new speech.” Everyone laughs, but the message is
evident: when you find a message that works, stay on point. Bauer then launches
into anecdote, this time about leadership and how “true” leaders don’t pay
attention to polls. But it doesn’t matter because the moment belongs to the
principle of the Reagan story. There are more than 500 people in the room, many
of whom are community or campaign organizers, or candidates, themselves. And
they’ve just gotten their first important lesson (or reminder) of the day:
political messaging is all about focus and repetition. For the first time
today, I have to agree with Bauer.
8:10AM – Gary Bauer
A woman steps to the podium to introduce our first speaker.
In the process of doing so, she somehow compares Jesus and the 12 Apostles to
the 15 members that comprised FRC in the organization's early days. I don't
know what's more troubling: comparing FRC members to Jesus and the Apostles, or
the fact she thinks 13 and 15 are the same number. Anyhow, she finally
introduces our first speaker, Gary Bauer, who takes the stage to thunderous
applause.
Gary Bauer is Jack Bauer's older, more politically-minded
brother. Gary Bauer eschewed a life of fighting terrorism for CTU to instead
become a highly successful Christian evangelical who served in the Reagan
Administration and ran (unsuccessfully) for the Republican Party's presidential
nomination in 1999. Gary
also was a high-ranking member of the Family Research Council from 1988-1999.
Needless to say, this audience is pumped to see one of their heroes step to the
mic.
Bauer begins his talk with a lament about the "state of our
culture." He professes concern that President Bush is taken to task by "liberal
media" (he singles out the New York Times) while Hugo Chavez is allowed to come
into our country and call our commander-in-chief the devil. The audience seems
equally upset by this, as evidenced by collective grumbling and a willingness
to put down the bacon for a moment.
The elder Bauer is also upset that The Cooper Union for the
Advancement of the Art, a small college in New York City
where Lincoln
once spoke, allowed Chavez to speak on campus. Worse, Bauer, proclaims, is that
Cooper Union students and Presidents cheered Chavez and jeered President Bush.
It's not clear if Bauer is most upset with Cooper Union, academia in general, those
specific students and professors, or Hugo Chavez.
Apparently, the Chavez rant was a lead-in to a discussion
about the work that must be done to fix America's values and culture. Bauer
starts off, however, on a sour note by identifying anyone who attends church as
being the "so called 'religious right'." Hard to believe Gary's call to brotherhood when he's already
brushed aside anyone who is even a moderate Christian, let alone a liberal one.
7:45AM – Breakfast
I've discovered that, shocking as this may seem, bagels
served by religious conservatives taste like any other bagels. Their fruit
plates are the same as well. Surprisingly, there's no group prayer before
everyone starts to chow down. I think that's the upset of the day thus far. That,
or the fact the summit organizers are providing the largest piles of breakfast bacon
I have EVER seen anywhere. Seriously, they're two feet high. Jimmy Dean would be
proud.
In the dinning room, I'm sitting at a table alongside three
couples, all of whom brought their children to the summit. I'm starting to get
the impression they care about families here. I could be off, though. Everyone
is excitedly talking about key pieces of legislation in various states. Currently,
they're all very concerned with and informed about Colorado's marriage amendment banning same-sex
marriage. I have to give them credit for doing their homework. It's not often
that you sit down at a table of total strangers talking furiously and
passionately about a bill that won't effect them in any way, shape, or form.
Wait, this is Washington, D.C. What am I talking about?
A glance around the room reveals the crowd to be mostly fifty
years old and up. Everyone in here could be my parent or grandparent, which is
not a bad thing, per se, just an observation. Everyone seems nice enough,
although if anyone knew I'm here on behalf of FaithfulDemocrats, I might be
made into the next large pile of bacon.
7:30AM – Public Exhibits
Part 2
In talking with representatives at the booths, I come away
impressed by the degree of shared camaraderie. Many of these groups are from
different states. Most or all of them are fighting for a share of the same pool
of funding. And yet they seem exceptionally glad to see others in the room
fighting for the same causes. So there's my first real lesson of the day: these
guys are team players.
The only group that I think most Americans (ie: moderate
democrats, independents, moderate republicans) would not find to be
ideologically
extreme is The Bible Literacy project. A nice guy named Marco informs
me that the group's mission is to create a textbook that high schools
can use as a
historical and religious text in certain classrooms. Marco is eager to
note
that the project is not about forcing religious beliefs on anyone, and
that the
impetus for the project was born from years of polling showing that
American college
professors are frustrated by incoming students' lack of historical
perspective
in regards to western civilization's Judeo-Christian culture. Marco
says the
book was carefully written so as to meet every single guideline
outlined by
legal and legislative bodies. Ok, seems reasonable enough. I'm sure
there's a
side to this story that I don't know that might dramatically alter how
I view the Bible Literacy Project, but, for the moment, Marco and his
gang seem
like the only group in the large ballroom espousing something other than "gay marriage will ruin
us all!"
All in all, I'm both disappointed and impressed. I'm
impressed for the PR and communications reasons I mentioned above. I'm disappointed,
however, because all I see is a two-issue "values" platform. Sure, I expected
gay marriage and abortion to be the hot topics, but it's discouraging to see
that exactly no one in the room is talking about other "values," such as economic justice,
environmentalism, and acceptance of other people and cultures. More soon…
7:20AM – Public Exhibits
As I'm rummaging through my schwag bag that I received
during registration, I come across the public exhibits room. From a distance,
the whole operation looks like any job or science fair you've ever been to (or,
in my case, strolled right on past), except almost every booth has banners and
posters with terms like "family," "values," "children," etc in an enormous
font.
I'm picking up as many free pamphlets and booklets as
possible. The most striking one yet is a large booklet entitled "Helping Your
Child Overcome Homosexuality." Yikes. The author of the booklet characterized
himself as a "recovered" homosexual. I'm a little scared to leaf through it.
Does this process involve an exorcism? Pretty ridiculous.
One thing I have to give these groups credit for is being on
message. There are probably 25 exhibits in the room and at least 20 of them are
organizations devoted to promoting "family values," protecting "religious
freedoms," and stopping abortions. From a public relations perspective, these
groups are doing all the right things. They're on message, succinct,
clear-spoken, and have loads of documentation to back up their case.
7:10AM – Registration
Ok, I just got done with registration. Whew, no problems
thus far. No one asked for my "religious conservative" credentials,
which is
good since I probably would have handed them my library card if forced
to
present ID. It felt a bit awkward, even though I've checked into dozens
of similarly structured events before. This one felt different. I'll
let you guess why.
They certainly have a lot of personnel and security staff on
hand. Of course, several members of the U.S. Congress are in attendance, as
well as a couple of governors and a multitude of prominent conservative
religious leaders whose controversial status might necessitate extra security,
so the extra muscle is not entirely unexpected. Then again, I just saw two of the security staff nodding off against a wall.
Man, 7:00AM is damn early for all of this. Why on earth
would people want to meet at this hour? More to come….
Introduction:
Greetings everyone, and thanks
for stopping by. For the next few days, I'm going to be blogging from and about
the Values Voter Summit. For those who are wondering what the hoopla is about,
let me explain.
The summit is hosted in
Washington, D.C., and is sponsored by the Family Research Council, one of the
most influential and conservative groups in the country. The list of featured speakers includes Senators Rick
Santorum (PA), George Allen (VA), and Sam Brownback (KS), as well as Dr. Jerry
Falwell, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, U.S. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales, and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Oh, and this
is the abbreviated list. Make no mistake; the summit will serve as a major
strategic meeting for GOP, religious conservative, and Bush Administration
officials as we head into the stretch run before the midterm elections.
So why am I going, you ask?
Good question. The reason I'm
attending is not to steal secrets or sabotage anything of any kind (though I'm
sure more than a few of you would prefer me to do so). I'm also not attending
the conference simply to disparage those in attendance.
In fact, I'm going for the exact opposite reason. I'm going
because I think I'll learn a lot, and, if I do my job well, you might learn a
few things also. As we all know, conservative Republicans have been remarkably successful
over the last several years at persuading voters about matters of faith. To be sure, many Americans (myself included),
find the views espoused by radical religious conservatives to be narrow-minded,
illogical, hateful, and sometimes just plain bigoted. Still, they're the ones who
keep winning elections. Regardless of how many of us might feel, we have to
acknowledge that the religious right has been very smart in its messaging, and their
success is not due simply to playing off the fears and emotions of certain
voters. Their messaging strategies have been tactical, targeted, and pragmatic.
And if you think they'll simply forget how to speak to Americans about religion
and politics in November or in 2008, then you're kidding yourself. So, for those who want to find a more
effective way for Democratic candidates to talk about their faith and how it
shapes their political life, this conference is a chance to learn from the best
(yes, it hurts me to say it, too).
The other reason I'm compelled to attend the conference is
because of a problem larger than any one party, faith, or political office.
America is reaching a boiling point of disunity. Secularism and religious conservatism
are fighting bitterly.
Equally troubling is that intra-faith debates about what makes a "real" or "true"
Christian are tearing religious communities apart. As a country, the United
States is not quite sure to what degree and in what ways it wants religion to
play a role in politics and government. Yes, I know many out there are quite
sure of what they want, but there are just as many who fiercely advocate in
opposition. And so we've arrived at this condition of national fracture, an
existence in which each side believes that power to the other can only guarantee
the downfall, moral and otherwise, of our civilization. Looking ahead to the midterm
elections and, more importantly, to 2008, I am wondering how to construct a unified
vision of American life that reconciles differing views on religion and its
role in public policy and leadership. I don't have great or even good answers,
at least not yet. And I haven't found anyone else who's got the answers, either
(though I do have my suspicions about a few out there). But I am hopeful that,
by attending the Values Voter Summit, I'll learn something helpful about people
with starkly different views than my own. All sides have to do better job of
understanding one another, and it needs to start right now. If we can do that,
then perhaps America can return to being a place where the common threads and
experiences of faith and public service are among our country's strongest
assets.
So, now that you know my reasons for attending the
conference, let me share some of what I hope to be doing and writing about over the next few
days. My principle mission is to simply blog about what's being said, who is
saying it, and how members of the audience react. Not that different from what
a reporter would do, except that I will, of course, also be evaluating the
content and substance of what transpires. One thing I will be especially
watchful for is how speakers define "values." If I discover the term is simply
used as a stand-in for "abortion" and "gay marriage," I won't be surprised, but
I will be disappointed. And I won't be reticent to say so.
I'm definitely not going to promise anything grand, but I'll
do my best to accurately capture the experience in a comprehensive and
articulate manner, and share whatever considerations strike me. I'm eager to
see how everything goes during the next few days. Feel free to submit any
questions or comments; I'm all about the feedback. Thanks again, and I hope to
see you all soon.
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