Remember the culture wars? This week the Democrats sued for peace.
On Friday evening, email queues lit up everywhere with people reacting to Barack Obama's thoughts on life being nasty, bitter and short in small-town America. Time was not long ago that a Democratic candidate could have said such folk cling to guns and religion and are hostile to "diversity" with nary a peep from his party. Not now. Obama was repudiated. Crushed. Media analysis suggested the damage could last til November.
Before midnight, Hillary was paddling down Whiskey River with the boys at Bronko's. Then on Sunday evening, the white flag really went up over the culture war's battlefield.
Hillary and Obama were both at an event in Grantham, Pa., in Cumberland County. That's south of Mechanicsburg and east of Boiling Springs. John Kerry took Pennsylvania by 2.5% in 2004, but Cumberland gave George Bush 64% of its vote. Hillary and Obama were appearing on a CNN event called the "Compassion Forum." They were at a place called Messiah College. Connect the dots.
AP
Knockin' back Crown Royals with the boys at Bronko's.
Campbell Brown to Sen. Clinton: "And you have actually felt the presence of the Holy Spirit on many occasions. Share some of those occasions."
Hillary Clinton: "I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the Holy Spirit was there with me as I made a journey . . . You know, it could be walking in the woods. It could be watching a sunset."
Hit rewind on the tape of history. It is 1992, the Republican Convention in Houston, at the Astrodome. This was the moment of arrival for the "Christian right." Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush's VP nominee, spoke to a huge throng of evangelicals about "family values." Pat Buchanan delivered his "culture wars" speech. The press corps, for whom all this was alien ground, was openly hostile to the GOP.
Shelves bend beneath the weight of books analyzing the "war" between religiously oriented cultural conservatives and secular libs. "Piss Christ" and all that. Abortion. Robert Mapplethorpe's erotic photographs banned in Cincinnati. Abortion. Gun control. Michael Moore mocking Charlton Heston. Hollywood's endless Babylon. Home schoolers. Abortion.
Though vilified, these people wouldn't go away. The exit polls for George W. Bush's victory in 2004 revealed that the No. 1 issue for most voters was "moral values." Liberal analysts furiously attacked Karl Rove for "exploiting" these sentiments.
But even Karl Rove couldn't invent God, and God and faith were everywhere in Grantham Sunday evening.
Read the whole thing.
But even as he affirms the fact that evangelical Christians are not outcasts, he explicitly affirms the fact that they are the "other."
Sen. Obama: "Religion is a bulwark . . . Somebody like myself whose entire trajectory, not just during this campaign, but long before, has been to talk about how Democrats need to get in church, reach out to evangelicals, link faith with the work that we do . . .
His advice to the Left: "Give religious reasons for your acts."
You "reach out" to groups that are not part of your group. You "reach out" to people who are not like you. In other worlds, Obama wants Evangelicals to vote for him and others on the Left, but when you come to his house, use the servants entrance and don't expect to be invited for dinner.
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