The Pulpit and the Potemkin Village (Peggy Noonan on Huckabee and Hillary)

Wall Street Journal ^ | December 14, 2007 | Peggy Noonan

[Zakeet]

What is happening in Iowa is no longer boring but big, and may prove huge.

The Republican race looks--at the moment--to be determined primarily by one thing, the question of religious faith. In my lifetime faith has been a significant issue in presidential politics, but not the sole determinative one. Is that changing? If it is, it is not progress.

Mike Huckabee is in the lead due, it appears, to voter approval of the depth and sincerity of his religious beliefs as lived out in his ministry as an ordained Southern Baptist. He flashes "Christian leader" over his picture in commercials; he asserts his faith is "mainstream"; his surrogates speak of Mormonism as "strange" and "definitely a factor." Mr. Huckabee said this summer that a candidate's faith is "subject to question," "part of the game."

[Snip]

Hillary Clinton's entire campaign is, and always was, a Potemkin village, a giant head fake, a haughty facade hollow at the core. That she is disorganized on the ground in Iowa, taken aback by a challenge to her invincibility, that she doesn't actually have an A team, that her advisers have always been chosen more for proven loyalty than talent, that her supporters don't feel deep affection for her. That she's scrambling chaotically to catch up, with surrogates saying scuzzy things about Barack Obama and drug use, and her following up with apologies that will, as always, keep the story alive. That her guru-pollster, the almost universally disliked Mark Penn, has, according to Newsday, become the focus of charges that he has "mistakenly run Clinton as a de facto incumbent" and that the top officials on the campaign have never had a real understanding of Iowa.

[Zakeet]

Classic Peggy Noonan -- the summary does not do justice, several powerful quotes, therefore worth a read in my opinion

[dano1]

[dawn53]

Great quote when she was writing about Dems wanting Bill Clinton back in the White House:

But maybe it's this. Maybe they'd love to have him back in the White House. Maybe they just don't want him to bring her. Maybe they miss the Cuckoo's Nest and they'd love having Jack Nicholson's McMurphy running through the halls. Maybe they just don't miss Nurse Ratched. Does she have to come?

[moneyrunner]

What's great about elections is that it forces politicians to meet with the people and find out what we want. Giuliani has become a "believer" in border control. (Scroll down)

[samtheman]

I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment. Not a regular churchgoer, said he experienced God riding his horse at the ranch, divorced, relaxed about the faiths of his friends and aides, or about its absence. He was a believing Christian, but he spent his adulthood in relativist Hollywood, and had a father who belonged to what some saw, and even see, as the Catholic cult. I'm just not sure he'd be pure enough to make it in this party. I'm not sure he'd be considered good enough.

Although I understand her point, and basically agree that the number of "conservatives" willing to ignore Huckabee's liberalism and vote for him just because he thumps a bible is disturbing, I think she's wrong about how Reagan would do today. Reagan would do fine today. Reagan knew how to connect with conservatives -- he could connect with a wide spectrum of people, but especially with conservatives -- and he'd know the exact right thing to say that would send that back-woods hick con-man lying socialist back home to his Arkansas outhouse with the laughter of conservatives ringing in his ears.

That was part of the genius of Reagan. He knew how to speak the truth -- and make the truth hurt his opponents -- better than any leader in American history.

[arthurus]

But if/when he is elected we won’t hear much more about it until three and a half more years have passed. Then he will give some mighty lip service again, if the problem has not overwhelmed us in the meantime.

[Pietro]

I like Peggy but I don't always agree w/ her. At the beginning of this election cycle we were told that Christians were no longer the dominating force in the GOP, and good riddence.

Now apparently, shazamm, they're controlling the race w/ their narrow mindedness. Can't you Christians just shut up?

The truth is that most Christians are educated, alert, and intellegent enough to make decisions on their own. They are not going to be schmoozed (or shoved) in any particular direction even if the Voices in New York think they're a bunch of hayseeds. The condesension makes me gag.

This election has a long way to go. The religious character of the candidates is a factor, but only one factor. It will all come out in the wash, but at least the GOP is having an honest and substantive debate on this issue as well as many others, including immigration.

The dhimmis are posing for moveon.org and throwing tomatoes at each other.

Things are as they should be. Merry Christmas!

[advance_copy]

It takes a Potemkin village.

Oh, that is good. Really, really good.

[maica]

The facts that Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson and Alan Keyes all did well in Iowa caucuses when they ran for president in the past, should be mentioned more often. It will help illustrate the particular focus of a large number of Iowa Republican caucusers. Their Iows high marks were not achieved in other states.

[Ann Archy]

the almost universally disliked Mark Penn, ......

I'll add the odious Howard Wolfson and Harold Ickes also!! HORRIBLE people...smarmy SQUARED!

[Ann Archy]

I’m not sure why ANYONE would want the EMBARRASSMENT of BILL CLINTON back in the White House.....if I had been a Democrat, I would have been MORTIFIED at the scandals....I was mortified, actually, for our country.

[Servant of the Cross]

I agree with your sense that Reagan would "do fine today." I also sense that Peggy is writing the "pulpit" part of this directly to James Dobson, almost appealing to him to see the personal faith of a political candidate in the right perspective again. I blame Rudy for this. His early "inevitability" was a scary thing to be avoided at great cost and led to this "out of kilter" emphasis on the candidate's personal faith in this race.

It is the Advent Season and so appropriately, there is hope. All things can be made new again. Think of the impact on this primary race if the next endorsement we see is that of James Dobson, following a reconciliation meeting, endorsing Fred Thompson. McCain would be the next to endorse after bowing out and the race would be all over but for the shouting.

[cowdog77]

The great question: Does it make Mr. Huckabee, does it seal his rise, that he has acted in such a manner? Or does it damage him? Republicans on the ground in Iowa and elsewhere will decide that. And in the deciding they may be deciding more than one man’s future. “
___________________________
As a Christian, my feeling is that this nation is in deep trouble, beset by problems we can’t seem to find answers to, and a lack of leaders who will address them. With this in mind, yes... many Christian voters may vote for a solid Christian leader, and then pray that God in His mercy, will see and honor that. Perhaps then we’ll see His blessings upon our country again.

I’m a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third.

[PghBaldy]

Then there’s the fact he lost the Congress to the Pubbies after decades of Democratic control. I voted for the guy. Twice. Ended up going from joy to fury in 8 years. Take it from this former liberal- he isn’t as popular or powerful as many think. He also doesn’t seem to help Hillary much.

[Gritty]

[JCEccles]

many Christian voters may vote for a solid Christian leader, and then pray that God in His mercy, will see and honor that. Perhaps then we’ll see His blessings upon our country again.

Are you suggesting that unless we elect Huckabee, we will not have God's blessings?

That's frightening to us Christians who don't drink Huckabee's peculiar brand of "Jesus Juice."

[JCEccles]

I’m a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third.

Exactly the sort of voter who gave us Carter in 1976. If you lived through that debacle you know that God's blessings were not on America during those sorry four years.

God's blessings were only restored when Ronald Reagan--a non-evangelical, non-churchgoing man with high moral principles--was elected and the pious, pontificating, self-righteous evangelical Carter was tossed out.

[Zechariah11]

I understand that the Huck had an open wedding registry available for contributors two decades after his marriage (easier for contributors);

also I heard him summarize the Gospel to the BBC as --- the Golden Rule (rather shabby analysis wouldn't you say?)

[Tribune7]

I’m a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third.

That's exactly how I feel and there is no way I'm voting for Huck.

[lonestar]

I understand that the Huck had an open wedding registry available for contributors two decades after his marriage (easier for contributors);

I'm not for Huck, he scares me, but the registry was for his wife whose friends organized it when the Hucks built a new house. It was a "house-warming" thing.

It's common in the South and I really doubt he had anything to do with it-- if he even knew about it. It was totally different than when the Clintons picked out what they wanted from their friends when they left the WH.

[Pining_4_TX]

Yes, she’s full of it. How can one compare Chucklebee to Reagan?

[Irish Rose]

Although Noonan makes some good points in this article, that part about Ronald Reagan not making it in today's GOP is ridiculous. Let's put aside the fact that Reagan is venerated far and wide. Let's consider the points she thinks Christian conservatives would hold against him. Let's consider that many of the present candidates are guilty of exactly the same things, and people aren't fussing.

How many people are on Fred Thompson's case because he's divorced? How many are jumping up and down because Ron Paul hasn't expressed interest in the religious views of those around him? Is anybody unhappy with Thompson because he has worked in "relativist Hollywood"? How many care that Rudy Guiliani is Catholic? And Peggy Noonan thinks it would be a negative point that Ronald Reagan's father was Catholic.

[samtheman]

You are right.