All the GOP Candidates Kiss the Ring Of the Radical Christian Right

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/all-gop-candidates-kiss-ring-radical-christian-right

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie are all considering a run for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, or are keeping speculation alive to sell books or remain in the public eye, and all answered Ralph Reed’s call to address the annual Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in the nation’s capital. (Jeb Bush had a scheduling conflict.)

By their calculation, they had to attend.

The Pew Research Center has found that Evangelical Protestants represent 26.3 of Americans . They account for more than 50 percent of voters in GOP primaries, according to a poll commissioned by CBS after the 2012 elections. In recent presidential elections, Evangelicals have dominated the always influential Republican Precinct Caucuses in Iowa.

So in mid-June, six marquee-name Republicans shared a hotel ballroom stage with talk-radio curiosities Gary Bauer, Allen West, retired General Jerry Boykin, Dominionist Christian preacher Rafael Cruz and others.

Despite the insularity, mind-numbing sameness, repetitiveness, substitution of apocrypha for fact, and dissembling, these gatherings of Christian conservatives play a role into our national politics. They also play a role in moving the Republican Party further to the right.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. good read.

[kelliekat44]

2. I believe that the "radical" Christian right is having less and less influence on people. But don't

tell them that. Let them keep doing what they are doing and we may be able to weed them all out.