Is Rubio running for president or pastor-in-chief?


Here is a campaign ad that Marco Rubio is running in Iowa that is clearly inspired by the reputation that the state’s Republican caucus voters have for being strongly evangelical. To me it seems way over the top in its blatant pandering.

huckabee crossI cannot recall any candidate in the past being so nauseatingly religious. Even Mike Huckabee, the one candidate who was actually a Baptist minister before he went into politics, being criticized when he ran for president in 2008 for showing a campaign Christmas commercial standing in front of a bookshelf whose frame resembled a cross. Critics said this was dog whistle politics and he was sending a subtle signal to Christians. There is nothing subtle about the Rubio ad this time. He is using a megaphone, not a dog whistle.

Meanwhile Huckabee is bitterly lashing out at conservative evangelical leaders because they are not showing him enough love. He sees himself as being one of them and yet they are supporting other people. He made the same complaint back in 2008 but this time he is taking his criticisms much further, saying that this is because deep in their hearts these leaders are false Christians who only care about raising funds and they are scared that if he becomes president he will really ban abortions and same-sex marriage, and that they need those things to raise funds.

It may be that part of the reason for their lack of support is that they think he has no chance of winning and also that they just don’t like him. But I that that he is correct in saying that opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage has long been a cash cow for conservative evangelical leaders and organizations, and without those issues to rail against, they’d be bereft of a major galvanizing fundraising force.

Comments

  1. raven says

    I cannot recall any candidate in the past being so nauseatingly religious.

    Sarah Palin.

    No one ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the American people. Especially the fundies. Their subculture is a morass of one scam and scammer after another.

  2. Pierce R. Butler says

    I cannot recall any candidate in the past being so nauseatingly religious.

    The Shrub laid it on pretty thick too. However, even he did at least mention the position he was running for.

  3. says

    Interestingly, I have yet to see this ad. Maybe he’s running it in the northwest where the Evangelical stronghold is?

    What I have seen here, though, is an equally obnoxious ad from Huckabee. I can’t find it on YouTube or his website, so the best I can do is cover some of the points:
    -- USA exists because of God. (Has the eerie implication that the USA is God’s new “Chosen” country.)
    -- Defends marriage (by which he means opposite-sex only, of course) because it’s Biblical.
    -- He knows to get down on his knees and humble himself before God. (You can stop laughing any time now.)

    And I think there may have been one or two more points in there that I just can’t remember off the top of my head.

  4. StevoR says

    Whatever Rubio is running for he ain’t gonna make it there. Too bad. Him. Not for him. Just him.

  5. Ichthyic says

    he is taking his criticisms much further, saying that this is because deep in their hearts these leaders are false Christians who only care about raising funds

    well, that part is true. most of those running on the right really ARE just doing it for the quick cash they can get, and will drop out (or have already) as soon as the cash inflow goes below the cash outflow used for advertising and roadtrips.

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