Well, this year they met a couple weeks ago and couldn't decide whom to support in the prexy sweeps. They know McCain and Giuliani can't stand them, and even deeply conservative Christian candidates like Sam Brownback are suspicious. Brownback isn't tough enough on immigrants, and he supports the growing pro-environmental movement among evangelicals. As for Mitt Romney, the "council" has decided he has held too many liberal positions in the past, though he's now trying to claim the mantle of Family Values Candidate and Ann Coulter loves him. So the "council" is bereft of choices.
What's really happening is a generational change. The founders of the Council for National Policy -- people like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Jerry LaHaye, are in their 70s. The new evangelicals are looking beyond the classic hot-button issues of gay rights and abortion to care for the environment -- even things that Jesus actually talked about, like feeding and housing the poor. They include people like Rick Warren, leader of one of the largest churches in the country and author of a book, "The Purpose Driven Life," which is hugely influential among fundies, Pentacostals and the suburbanites who pack the non-denominational megachurches, of which Warren's is one.
I have the feeling that power-hungry christianists like those in the "council" will figure out by the end of the year that they have to choose between Brownback (who could never win) and Romney (who is anonymous enough to squeak by under the radar, and besides, Ann Coulter...). Meanwhile I'm enjoying the notion that they're twisting in the wind.
And this just in: A Salon report on Republicans smearing each other in a primary state.
technorati: Fundamentalists, right-wing Christians, Council for National Policy
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