Notes From D. R.

Weekend Box Office: Wedding Day

Why Did I Get Married? tops the charts.

Resistance Movement

Who knew there were so many young Republicans in "The Bluest State"?

Hope-less

Wait a second. The Boston Globe's even afraid of Mike Huckabee?

Sunshine State

So who really won the 2000 election?

It seems as though Al Gore got the better end of the deal seven years ago, when the Supreme Court put an end to the foolishness in Florida. While he did not fulfill his lifelong goal of becoming President, Gore now seems to be in a pretty sweet spot: he’s won an Oscar, received the Nobel Peace Prize, and is viewed by millions as the Martin Luther King of the environmental movement.

Meanwhile President Bush seems haggard, tired, exhausted, worn down by the stress of war and the hatred of his critics. Look at photos of Bush in 2002 and compare them to photos of the President in 2007; it’s almost as though you’re looking at photos of two different people. Bush looked like a young, vibrant man five years ago; back then, one could almost describe him as the GOP’s Jack Kennedy. Now, he looks like he’s seventy-five years old.

You can’t help wondering if Bush and Gore would love to trade places just for a day. I’m sure Gore still thinks about what it would be like to wield Presidential power. I’m also sure Bush thinks about what it would be like not to have so many people around the world mistakenly regard him as a villain.

However, Bush and Gore will remain in their respective positions, and in many ways the world is better off for it.

Maybe environmental activism was really Gore’s calling all along; that’s probably why he seems so calm and serene now. While Gore’s constant references to his “faith tradition” during the 2000 campaign came across as a way to hide a lack of religious belief, it may be that Gore was in fact a man of faith all along—and that he realizes environmental activism was God’s plan for him.

I didn’t vote for Gore seven years ago; I found him far too liberal, far too willing to demonize ideological opponents, far too connected to the Clinton sleaze machine. However, Gore is clearly an intelligent man (and, believe it or not, a guy with a crisp sense of humor; I’ll never forget how funny he was during his December 2002 gig hosting Saturday Night Live).  While his attacks on President Bush and other Republicans are nothing short of obnoxious, his Nobel Prize victory is not nearly as offensive to normal sensibilities as, say, Yasser Arafat’s 1994 win.

Gore was not meant to be President. He did not have the temperament, he did not have the ability to see beyond hard partisan boundaries, and he would not have been able to wage an aggressive war against terrorism (certainly Clinton wasn’t able to). However, Gore was meant to be an ecological crusader. I disagree with the dishonesty of his methods, in particular his error-filled and widely-discredited 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. However, I don’t blame the guy for following his true calling.

Not to thump my Bible too aggressively, but I believe the hand of God was on the 2000 election. I believe it was God’s will that Bush lead the United States through the dark, rough terrain of the Terrorism Age, and I also believe it was God’s will that Gore take up the cause of encouraging people to treat the environment with compassion. Yes, one can argue that Gore has become overzealous in his efforts to protect the environment; it’s an argument that I do not dispute. However, it seems clear that both Bush and Gore are ultimately operating according to a divinely inspired template.

Bush couldn’t do what Gore does, and vice versa. Thanks to media demonization, few folks would buy Bush as an eco-warrior; if Bush tried to encourage folks to conserve and to combat climate change, the first thing you would hear from the Fourth Estate is, “But he’s an oilman from Texas!” Similarly, if Gore tried to lead a fight against Islamofascism as President, he would be hamstrung by the ACLU, George Soros, and the various far-left entities that dominate the Democrat Party—entities committed to the deranged  notion that the United States, not extremist Islam, is responsible for terrorism.

Bush and Gore are both doing what they were born to do. Bush was the man best equipped to lead us during the initial stages of the War on Terror. Gore was the man best equipped to lead the environmental movement. It’s amazing that so many folks are still bitter over the 2000 election, when that election resulted in victories, personal and political, for both Bush and Gore.

Law Maker

J. Edward Pawlick, a newspaper publisher and activist known for his outspoken conservatism in liberal Massachusetts, passes away at 80. More from Robert Ambrogi.

At Large

Have Bay State Democrats declared war on Boston political reporter Jon Keller? Also, has a Boston talk-radio station declared war on a former morning host? More from the Boston Herald.

Oy Vey!

Human Events on the latest controversy involving author Ann Coulter.

High Praise

Religious conservative Gary Bauer vouches for Fred Thompson.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Are the folks who support Rudy Giuliani’s bid for the Republican nomination attempting to resurrect the pre-Reagan GOP?

It seems odd that Giuliani’s backers have yet to take seriously Christian-right leader James Dobson’s threat to “raise up” a third-party candidate to compete for the conservative general-election vote in the event Giuliani gets the nomination. Considering the power Dobson still commands in social-conservative circles, his warnings shouldn’t be dismissed.

Yet Giuliani’s supporters remain loyal to the former New York major, ignoring the obvious risks he would pose as the GOP standard-bearer. One has to wonder if the pro-Giuliani crowd believes that the power of the religious right is on the decline in America.

Admittedly, it’s not necessarily wrong to believe that social conservatism is possibly dying out in this country. Other than abortion, issues that concern social conservatives don’t seem to trouble the general voting population. American films and CDs remain filled with violence and vulgarity despite years of social-conservative activism aimed at forcing Hollywood to “clean up its act.” Fewer and fewer Americans seem troubled by the concept of destroying embryos for purposes of stem-cell research. The issue of gay rights is simply not controversial for many Americans under the age of 35.

However, even though the religious right isn’t as powerful as it was between 1979 and 1989, the movement is not dead yet. So long as Roe v. Wade remains legal, and so long as the political left advocates concepts seen as harmful to the American family, the religious right will still have a prominent place at the GOP table. Those who support Giuliani’s nomination are saying, in essence, that the religious right doesn’t belong at the table. However, if they force social conservatives to back a third-party candidate, the GOP could be in for its last supper.

Giuliani’s backers should understand that the GOP wasn’t doing so well between 1960 and 1980. The party lost two elections in the ‘60s, one a narrow defeat, the other a landslide. Richard Nixon barely won in 1968, and his 1972 landslide victory was largely a consequence of George McGovern’s extremism. After the Watergate scandal and Jimmy Carter’s 1976 victory over Gerald Ford, the GOP’s electoral prospects were pretty dim.

Say what you will about Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the other religious right figures who transformed the GOP in the 1980s, but they gave the party a new meaning and purpose, establishing the GOP as the home of traditionalism, a strong national defense, and limited government. The Republican Party basically stood for nothing between 1960 and 1980; the religious right gave the GOP a mission statement that led the party to five memorable Presidential victories.

How could Giuliani’s supporters ignore the crucial role this Judeo-Christian coalition played in making the GOP a dominant party? Do they not understand how distasteful Giuliani’s social views are to these voters?

Ultimately, social conservatives just want a little respect when they come home: they want assurances that the GOP will continue to honor their views on life, marriage and the family. With Giuliani as the GOP nominee, there can be no such assurances.

If Giuliani receives the GOP nomination, it will effectively ensure Hillary Clinton’s election next November, just as Colin Powell’s decision not to run for President in 1996 effectively ensured Bill Clinton’s re-election. Millions of disaffected social conservatives will shrug their shoulders and conclude that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to key issues. They will either stay home or back Dobson’s hand-picked third-party candidate. Either way, the Clintons will return to the White House, and whatever gains social conservatives made in the 2000s will be reversed by the end of Mrs. Clinton’s first term.

Two years ago, hip-hop star Kanye West was criticized for claiming that President Bush didn’t care about people of color. It’s bad enough that Bush and his party are perceived this way; it will be even worse if Bush’s would-be successor is a man who clearly doesn’t care about the principled positions of the GOP’s base. The Republican Party has been warned: nominating Giuliani won’t make the GOP stronger, because if he’s on the ballot in November ’08, the followers of Jesus will walk.

I Demand A Recount!

Al Gore wins the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his climate-change work. Can't somebody count the ballots in Oslo?

Who'll Pay For This Microphone?

Jonah Goldberg says Ronald Reagan is not coming back anytime soon.

Whoa!

Have Julian Bond and Al Sharpton changed their tune on Clarence Thomas? 

Friends In Low Places

Peggy Noonan on the dilemma facing GOP Presidential contenders: do you bash President Bush to exploit his weak job-approval ratings, or do you embrace him because the Republican base still appreciates his work in the War on Terror?

American Gangster

Daniel Henninger on the thuggish attempts to silence free speech in the US.

Courtside

An insightful interview with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from Human Events.

The Rundown

Mitt Romney vs. the Log Cabin Republicans.

Divine Secrets

The most important question of the 2008 election is: will anti-Roe women vote for Hillary Clinton?

The general rule of thumb in American politics is that women who support Roe v. Wade go for the Democrats, while women who oppose the controversial 1973 Supreme Court decision go for the Republicans. This usually holds true regardless of a candidate’s gender: a majority of (presumably anti-Roe) women voters supported the Reagan-Bush ticket in November 1984, despite the fact that Geraldine Ferraro was Democrat Walter Mondale’s running mate.

Hillary Clinton’s only real hope for victory next year lies in convincing a significant number of anti-Roe women—particularly evangelical women who supported President Bush in 2000 and 2004—that they should not cast their lot with the Republicans this time. However, it’s difficult to see how she can do this.

Unless a significant number of anti-Roe women have become totally embittered against the Republicans, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll vote based on “sisterhood” instead of spirituality next year. If these women loathe the Democrats because they see the party as defenders of immorality, they won’t suddenly become enraptured by the Hillary mystique.

We often ignore the critical role women have played in the growth of the conservative movement. From Phyllis Schlafly in the 1960s and 1970s to Ann Coulter in the 1990s and 2000s, non-liberal women have been very effective in moving America to the center-right. Thanks to media bias, we’re conditioned to think that only reactionary men are outraged by secularism in American culture, judicial activism, excessive violence in movies and on television, etc. We’re taught to ignore how outraged America’s mothers are by perceived cultural rot.

Yet they are outraged—and with good reason. Those who nurture life are the ones most horrified by the “culture of death.” Those who try to raise psychologically healthy children are the ones most angered by elements in the culture that cause psychological damage. Those who want their children to live in peace are the ones most enraged by that which causes harm.

Anti-Roe women are “pro-life” in the purest sense. They are deeply religious, grateful to God for the gift of childbirth, disgusted by the legality of the procedure that brings the creation of life to a premature end. They are “culture warriors” in a way Bill O’Reilly could never be: their voices are the first, the loudest, and the most passionate whenever Hollywood or the music industry creates alleged art that conflicts with the values these women have tried to instill into their children.

Women who oppose Roe and the overall progressive agenda are the ones who will be the first in line to vote against Clinton. They are the mothers who had to explain adult concepts to their children way ahead of schedule thanks to Hillary’s husband. They are women of faith who still hold a grudge against the Clintons for inventing a new morality for political advantage.

If Clinton tries to play the “gender card,” these women will tear it in half. They will be unmoved by Clinton’s entreaties, for their loyalties lie not with other women, but with a man who was crucified for their sins.

Anti-Roe women—motivated by faith and deeply skeptical of the Democrats—could well be Clinton’s Achilles heel in 2008. She belongs to a party seen as viciously hostile to those who felt the Supreme Court was wrong three decades ago, a party whose “outreach” to religious voters always seems to fail. Clinton can only win if she convinces anti-Roe women that history is more important than holiness—and without being irreverent, it’s fair to say that Christ will return before that happens.

There are plenty of women voters who are focused on making the United States a moral country; they believe America will not survive if its citizens—inside and outside of government—are not grounded in Judeo-Christian principles. These women were either never loyal to the Democrats in the first place, or abandoned the party when Ronald Reagan expressed solidarity with their vision of a morally upright America. Clinton may be a gifted politician, but she is probably not gifted enough to make these women break faith with their faith—which means she may not have a prayer in next year’s election.

All Eyez On Me

Fred Thompson makes his Presidential debate debut. More from Matthew Continetti, the Washington Times, Jennifer Rubin, Jed Babbin, the New York Times and Washington Post.

"You Lousy, No-Good SOB!"

Clarence Page on the misogyny of former NBA star Isiah Thomas.

"That's Unacceptable!"

Human Events on why Hillary Clinton will not select Barack Obama as her running mate.

Big Poppa

I can't blame the folks who are jumping through hoops in an attempt to obtain a role in the upcoming biopic of late hip-hop star Chris "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace. If the film is well-made, it could easily become a "cultural touchstone" on the level of Scarface.

The Man With The Power

Without explicitly saying so, the New York Times concedes that President Bush still shapes the template of debate in Washington concerning the War on Terror. More from Matt Margolis.

The Reality-Based Community

Thomas Sowell says the world is finally seeing the Clarence Thomas he has known for nearly thirty years.

UPDATE: John Yoo on Thomas' liberal rulings.

Church Of The Poison Mind

How sad is it that Barack Obama belongs to a church whose pastor has an apparent fondness for extremist rhetoric? More from David Limbaugh.

Pipe Dream

Don't supporters of Al Gore realize that if he wanted to run for President again, he would have done so in '04?

Hell In A Handbasket

Will the New Culture War keep the Republicans in charge of the White House next year?

We’re all familiar with the poll that claimed “moral values” as the deciding factor for those who supported President Bush in the 2004 election. Some commentators felt that “moral values” was a euphemism for opposition to the gay rights movement, but those voted based on “moral values” had more than the so-called homosexual agenda in mind.

“Values voters” are concerned about the health of American culture, and those concerns were unbelievably strong three years ago. Traditionalists were horrified by the Janet Jackson “Nipplegate” controversy, the increasing vulgarity of hip-hop music, and the perceived anti-Americanism of such Hollywood celebrities as Bruce Springsteen, Michael Moore and Sean Penn. Those who rejected John Kerry at the ballot box did so because they felt  that Kerry, like Jackson, the hip-hop industry and the Hollywood Left, represented cultural recklessness in America. 

If the concerns of these voters remain as strong as they were in the last election, the Republicans will actually be on solid ground heading into 2008. Let’s face it, 2007 has provided just as much questionable cultural material as 2003-2004 did: the obsessive media coverage of such figures as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton has driven traditionalists crazy.

The usual rule of thumb is that Republicans win whenever folks are concerned about where the culture is headed. Ronald Reagan’s support largely came from religious conservatives angered by the cultural hedonism of the late-1970s. George H. W. Bush’s 1988 victory came about as a result of conservatives’ strong objections to Michael Dukakis’ social liberalism. Violence in Hollywood and sex in Washington drove traditionalists to the polls in 2000 to vote for Bush’s son.

The only exception to this rule occurred in 1992: although sex-themed movies such as Basic Instinct and violence-filled CDs such as Ice Cube’s Death Certificate and Tupac Shakur’s 2Pacalypse Now outraged conservatives, it was faux-moderate Democrat Bill Clinton who emerged victorious in that year’s election. Clinton, of course, exploited conservative cultural concerns to win the election, distancing himself from the far-left with the famed “Sister Souljah moment.”

Clinton would go on to start the New Culture War with his actions in the Lewinsky scandal. Today, among conservatives, Clinton’s name is considered shorthand for cultural rot and the abandonment of traditional morality. No wonder conservatives are so disgusted by the thought of another Clinton returning to the White House.

Hillary Clinton has no idea how much she inflamed conservatives in January 1998 by dismissing criticism of her husband’s licentiousness as the overheated reaction of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Bill and Hillary are despised by the Right because they come across as having no regard for anything conservatives consider traditional and normal; they are seen as figures who have used their power to create a new morality. Having sex in the White House with interns, slandering media critics by accusing them of bearing rhetorical responsibility for the Oklahoma City Bombing, playing fast and loose with campaign financing laws—it was seemingly all in a day’s work to the Clintons. Traditionalists have always been disturbed by Clintons’ ends-justify-the-means vision of the world; they see that vision as being quite similar to the way those who have injured the culture look at life.

Democrats have long labored to break the bond that exists between “values voters” and the Republican Party. However, if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democrat nominee, the bond between the GOP and the “values voters” will likely strengthen (assuming, of course, that the GOP does not nominate a socially liberal candidate such as Rudy Giuliani). While Democrats have successfully pushed the issue of climate change to the political forefront, the party fails to understand that there are plenty of Americans, particularly in the South and Midwest, who believe that it’s just as important to protect the moral and cultural environment in which children are raised.  So long as the Democrats remain deaf to their concerns, the “values voters” will remain deaf to the Democrats’ pleas.

By nominating Clinton, the Democrats will say, in essence, that the scandals of the first Clinton administration were all trumped-up outrages by the right wing. They will slap in the face every parent who had to explain to their child what a “Lewinsky” was, every mother and father who tried to teach their offspring right and wrong while a President who did wrong was treated by his party and by the media as though he had done right. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if all of those folks decide to slap the Democrats back thirteen months from now.