Short answer:  Not very well, and it doesn’t appear they care.

Long answer:

The adulation given to Barack Obama was far more than can be accounted for by his historic run for the Presidency.  It got so bad before the election that Michael S. Malone, a tech journalist for ABC News, got to the point he was "deeply ashamed to be called a ‘journalist’".  Michael explained, back in late October:

For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions.  But I always wrote it off as bad judgment, and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.  Sure, being a child of the ‘60s I saw a lot of subjective “New” Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from ‘real’ reporting, and at least in mainstream media, usually was.  The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.  I’d spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else’s work – not out any native honesty, but out of fear: I’d always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense . . .indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

[…]

But nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign.  Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates.  But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass – no, make that shameless support – they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press.  I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather – not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake – but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

[…]

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.  Middle America, even when they didn’t agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a Presidential candidate.  So much for the Standing Up for the Little Man, so much for Speaking Truth to Power, so much for Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

Read the whole thing(tm).  Malone is more certainly not against reporters digging for the dirt (he supported the "reportorial SWAT teams" sent to Alaska to see what they could find about Gov. Palin).  What he is aghast at, however, was how utterly unbalanced this hardball treatment was. 

Aside from the viciousness given mostly to Republicans and their supporters, the Pew Research Center found that McCain’s news coverage was incredibly lopsided.

Slightly fewer than a third of the stories about Obama were negative, whereas more than a third were positive and about the same number were neutral or mixed. More than half of the stories about McCain cast him in a negative light, whereas fewer than 2 in 10 were positive, according to Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The study suggests that advancement in the polls does translate into more positive coverage, but with the polls so tight this season, bouncing around in the high 40s & low 50s for so long, that explanation doesn’t really fit.

The Washington Post ombudsman, Deborah Howell, also says that her paper tilted towards Obama and didn’t really cover the issues well.  The big question is, will this translate into better coverage?  With the media still in the tank for Democrats after decades of being that way, it doesn’t seem likely.

Just ask Chris Matthews:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, well, you know what? I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work, and I think that —

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Is that your job? You just talked about being a journalist!

MATTHEWS: Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country.

The phrase "speaking the truth to power" is about to drop quickly out of fashion in national media circles.

This was the title of a post on Redstate by Aaron Gardner, regarding where the Republican Party goes from here.  Gardner started, as his foundation of what the Republicans need to stand for, from the party platform of 1980, when Reagan was swept into the White House with 489 electoral votes.  He made some of his own modifications, but overall the (lengthy) statement stands as a good starting point.

Read the rest of this entry

I was on the road again this week, so not much time for a post-election wrap-up from me.  But now that the dust has settled, let me knock out a few thoughts.

1.  Exit polls indicate that the number of self-described liberals in this country and the number of self-described conservatives hasn’t changed hardly at all since the last election, and conservatives hold a 12 percentage point lead (34 to 22).  This is still a center-right country.  Obama would do well to remember that.

2.  You win with your base, and McCain took too long to pick it up.  Now, I know that others (our own contributor, Jim, being one) have said that the base took too long to converge around the candidate, but I have to respectfully disagree; I think that’s entirely backwards.  Conservatives in the Republican party have always looked at McCain with a cocked eye, and they — or, to be honestly inclusive, we — had a tough time with many of his positions.  Our minds weren’t going to be changed overnight because he won the nomination.  That’s not principled.

Conversely, McCain did, in fact, make moves to the right that eventually won over the base, but I don’t think he did it quickly enough.  However, if you win with (or lose without) your base, what about the highly-touted independents that were supposed to make McCain so popular?  The answer is…

3.  …they largely split between the two candidates, which throws out all the conventional wisdom on how to win elections.  It’s been all about the "bell curve", that huge group of voters in the center; neither Left or Right.  In a race between a center-Right candidate and a hard-Left one, the conventional wisdom was that the more centrist candidate would pull in the middle in droves.  That didn’t happen.  Karl Rove, love ‘im or hate ‘im, was right, as Dan McLaughlin noted on Redstate:

Karl Rove’s theory – one he perhaps never explicitly articulated, but which was evident in the approach to multiple elections, votes in Congress, and even international coalitions run by his boss, George W. Bush – was, essentially, that you win with your base. You start with the base, you expand it as much as possible by increasing turnout, and then you work outward until you get past 50% – but you don’t compromise more than necessary to get to that goal.

Standing in opposition to the Rove theory was what one might call the Beltway Pundit theory, since that’s who were the chief proponents of the theory. The Beltway Pundit theory was, in essence, that America has a great untapped middle, a center that resists ideology and partisanship and would respond to a candidate who could present himself as having a base in the middle of the electorate.

Tonight, we had a classic test of those theories. Barack Obama is nothing if not the pure incarnation on the left of the Rovian theory. He ran in the Democratic primaries as the candidate of the ‘Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.’ His record was pure left-wing all the way. He seems to have brought out a large number of new base voters, in particular African-Americans responding to his racial appeals and voting straight-ticket D. As I’ll discuss in a subsequent post, the process of getting to 50.1% for a figure of the left is more complex and involves more concerted efforts at concealment and dissimulation, but the basic elements of the Rovian strategy are all there.

John McCain, by contrast, was the Platonic ideal Beltway Pundit-style candidate, and his defeat by Obama ensures that his like will not win a national nomination any time soon, in either party. McCain spent many years establishing himself as a pragmatic moderate, dissenting ad nauseum and without a consistent unifying principle from GOP orthodoxy; McCain had veered to the center simply whenever he felt that the Republican position was too far. McCain held enough positions that were in synch with the conservative base to make him minimally acceptable, but nobody ever regarded him as a candidate to excite the conservative base.

Yes, this is essentially a restatement of point 2, but where as #2 is looking from the Right, #3 is looking from the center. 

Also keep in mind that the center is where most undecided voters live, some of whom don’t decide who to vote for until they in the voting booth.  Reagan won by sticking to his conservative principles and Obama won on his liberal credentials (spreading the wealth around, socializing health care, anti-war).  It wasn’t the blowout it should have been, given the perfect storm of an unpopular President, and unpopular war and a tanking economy, but a win is a win.

UPDATE:  John Hawkins concurs:  Top 7 Reasons Why the GOP Can’t Build a Political Party Around Moderates.

4.  McCain was hoist on his own petard; McCain/Feingold.  On election night, you could almost hear, in the back of your head, a voice-over saying, "This election brought to you by…campaign finance reform."  Another element of the perfect storm for Obama was the fact that he reneged on his promise to stick to public financing and hugely outspent McCain (yet still only managed an average victory).  This unconstitutional (in my humble opinion) program restricts free political speech, arguably what the First Amendment is precisely about.  McCain/Feingold is dead, for all intents and purposes.  At least it’s now irrelevant. 

I still respect McCain as a politician and a bridge-builder, and I believe he would have made a far better President than the one we’re going to get.  But cheer up, Republicans.  At least Obama is going to pay for your gas and your mortgage.

California, Florida (two blue states) and Arizona voters rejected same-sex marriage in their states.  As Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council notes, this signals that the electorate is still generally socially conservative, and that if Obama has a mandate, it’s an economic one. 

This is especially true among Obama’s big support blocs; blacks and Hispanics.  Byron York noted at the National Review Online that these constituents supported the ban 70-30 and 51-49 respectively.  The 90+ percent of African-Americans that voted for Obama, and who rightly have celebrated the election of a black man to the White House, quite apparently think this is "Change We Can Do Without"(tm).

The limbo that those who were married under the Supreme Court decision find themselves in is of their own making.  Rather than using the legislature or respecting the will of the people expressed in the last ballot initiative, they changed the battlefield.  However, they took their initial success with irrational exuberance, and when they were met on that battlefield they were defeated, leaving them in an odd situation, and forcing the California legal system into a Gordian Knot.  Once again, the "will of the people" cry we used to hear from the Left has died down to a whimper when they have an axe to grind.

Well, by John McCain as well, but by prominent conservative bloggers and personalities, too.  No moves to France contemplated here.

• Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.
• Scott Ott, Christian, satirist at ScrappleFace, but serious blogger on his TownHall blog.  Excerpt:

After George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, and later John Kerry, for the presidency, countless Democrat-owned cars bore bumper stickers with clever phrases like ‘Not My President’ or ‘Don’t Blame Me I Voted for Kerry’.

As a conservative evangelical Christian who voted for McCain-Palin, and for every other Republican on the ballot yesterday, let me say for the record: Barack Obama is my president.

I stayed up past midnight to watch his victory speech. I wept (a little less than Jesse Jackson) because the moment stirred me with gratitude for how God has thus far corrected America’s most crippling birth defect — racist discrimination.

• The entire panel of Directors at Redstate.
• Jonah Goldberg at National Review.
• Hugh Hewitt, conservative radio talk show host.
• Chuck Colson, Watergate convict and Christian writer and speaker.

And a guest blogger at Patterico’s Pontifications, along with congratulating him, lists what President-elect Obama can do to keep his campaign promises, and offers his own promises in return.

Congratulations again, to our first black President.  We’ve lived through a point in history that will be talked about for a long time to come.

With the polls officially closed in California, and its electoral votes in Barack Obama’s column, Fox News has called the election for him at this hour.  There’s no real doubt that this is the outcome.

We have entered an historic era, where it has been demonstrably shown that an African-American, once a race for whom bigotry was officially legislated, can indeed become President of the United States.  It has been done, and we have been witnesses of a great achievement in American history.

Hold him in your prayers and ask for God’s guidance in his life.  Regardless of who you voted for, God is still, always, in control, and He wants us to support our leaders.  Starting in January, Barack Obama will be our leader.

Work and family have kept me from posting much lately, and today is the last shot before Election Day.  So here are my thoughts about the main issues for this election and why I think John McCain stands on the correct side of each of them.

Abortion

Barack Obama’s answer to Rick Warren, that the question of when life begins was "above my pay grade", should disqualify him from consideration by anyone who is concerned about "the least of these".  Babies in the womb are arguably the least of the least of these, and while Obama claims he wouldn’t want to pick a point where life begins, it certainly doesn’t keep him from deciding where it ends.  It didn’t stop him from co-sponsoring the Freedom of Choice Act that would invalidate abortion laws nationwide, saying it would be "the first thing that I’d do".  In addition, the next President will likely be able to chose 1 or 2 Supreme Court justices, who may hear a case involving the FCA or other life and death matters.

Thus, if abortion matters to you, the only choice is John McCain.  And if you’re a Christian and abortion doesn’t matter to you, it should.

The Economy

Obama’s "spreading the wealth around" ideology, while not technically pure socialism, is certainly a shift in that direction.  As much as he insisted that he wasn’t penalizing someone for making it in America, he is.  If it was just for paying for the government we need, that would indeed be one thing, but wealth redistribution is not what the tax system was intended to do, and it is incredibly inefficient when shoehorned into doing it. 

As a Christian, I still don’t believe that when Jesus says that as individuals we should give to the poor, that didn’t mean that we should use the force of government to take from some to give directly to others.  I find that highly immoral.  I believe giving to the poor is a very good thing, something we are each individually commanded to do, but in no way do the ends justify the governmental, confiscatory means.

Right now, the economy is in a sad state, partly due to greed, partly due to a Democratic party that refused to see the signs.  The government has jumped in to help, with what could be argued as a "socialistic" means.  However, unlike other countries (Venezuela, anyone?), this is intended only as a stop-gap measure to get us past the current crisis.  Spreading the wealth around, and more and bigger government programs, are not the way to come out of it.  Creating more wealth and more opportunities are the way to bring ourselves out of this, and to ease poverty, and a vote for John McCain will help do that.  One main way to do this is…

Taxes

…lower taxes.  Both candidates say they want to lower taxes.  However, the income threshold where Obama would like to lower taxes itself keeps getting lower.  It started at $250,000, then $200,000, then Joe Biden talked about lower taxes for the middle class making less than $150,000.  So we don’t really know where the line is drawn.  And further, if a President Obama gets a filibuster-proof Congress, he’s not likely to veto whatever they come up with, and they’re not bound by his campaign promises.  Raising taxes in a down economy is deadly.

John McCain realizes this, and wants to lower taxes for everybody, including those who are rich enough to start small businesses and who create the lion’s share of the jobs in this country.  Class warfare rhetoric may sound good (and when all’s said and done, "spread the wealth" is class warfare), but if you penalize those who create jobs, you won’t get as many new jobs.  Simple.  In a down economy, the last people you want to penalize are the job-creators.  John McCain’s tax policy will get us out of this down economy sooner.

The War

The war on terror has multiple fronts, and one was Iraq.  It still could return to being one if we do what we did in Vietnam and leave too early.  Iraq is out of the news, and not because the election has pushed it off the front page; if there was bad news coming from there, the media would most certainly highlight it.  No, Iraq isn’t news because it’s going so well and Al Qaeda is losing.  In addition, contrary to most predictions 7 years ago, there has not been another successful terrorist attack in this country.

This is because we confronted evil where it was.  We took the fight to them; we didn’t wait for them to drop another building or kill thousands others.  Saddam Hussein was ignoring the conditions of the cease-fire without consequences, and was supporting terrorism both actively (e.g. subsidizing the families of Palestinian terrorists) and passively (turning a blind eye to terrorist training camps within his borders). 

The war was right, and we’re winning it.  Criticize the prosecution of it, especially early on, and I’ll agree with you, but overall it’s getting rid of the bad guys and keeping them away from us.  John McCain has been on the right side of each of these decisions and Barack Obama has been on the wrong side. 

Experience

Having been a community organizer, and being a Senator for 140 days before running for President is not the amount of experience required for the notional leader of the free world.  Especially when that community organization is filled with experiences like helping a 60s radical terrorist run an "educational" program that doesn’t appreciably increase education, but makes sure kids buck every authority in their path.  Barack Obama is as green as they come.  Supporting him precisely because of his brand of experience is to be incredibly naive. 

John McCain has a long history of working with both parties; something Democrats used to say that they valued.  But when a Republican who values bipartisanship campaigns for President, suddenly that doesn’t seem as important to them.  This week.  I don’t support every position that McCain has taken while making overtures to the Democrats, but I respect the fact that he makes that effort.  If you support bipartisanship, you should support John McCain.

Healthcare

Obama’s plan, while giving lip-service to choice, markets and keeping your current plan, will make it financially untenable for employers to keep whatever their current plan is and toss people into the government-run one.  He fakes to the right in the campaign, but he’ll cut to the left without you even noticing.  And once we socialize a little of the healthcare system, it’s nigh impossible to reign it back in once the cost overruns and ultimate lack of choices become apparent.  The entitlement mentality will expand and sink its claws into this area as well.  It’ll be a case of tweaking this and modifying that until…well, until Canadians don’t have any place to go to get the healthcare they need.

McCain’s plan keeps the market in place and doesn’t undermine it.  That’s true choice; giving you new ones without destroying the current ones.  If you’re pro-choice (in healthcare), vote for John McCain.

Sarah Palin

OK. she’s not technically an issue in the campaign, but I had to bring her up.  Democrats have laughed at her credentials — actual executive experience, true to her principles both in her public and personal lives, and the way she worked her way up herself in the world — even though they claim to value those principles, especially in a woman.  Turns out it’s all lip service.  Someone who exhibits the best in politics, and someone who lives up to so many ideals that people wish more politicians would have, was dismissed or demonized by the Left.  Seems they only value these characteristics in other Democrats.

While this attitude striped the veneer off many Democrats’ real motives, it highlighted what good choices John McCain will make as President.  If you truly value those ideals in any candidate for any office, John McCain is your man.  (And Sarah Palin is most definitely your woman.)

It’s almost Election Day, but before you vote, please consider the issues that really matter to you.  Not the sound bites or the slogans; the substance.  On many of the big issues of the day, and especially for Christians, I believe John McCain is the best choice for President.

See you on the other side.

Shire Network News #151 has been released. There is no feature interview this week.  Instead, 4 contributors, including me, make the case for John McCain.  Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to "Consider This!"

In what will be my final segment before the (official) Election Day here in the US (people have been voting early all over the country), I want give you reasons, not to vote against Barack Obama, but to vote for John McCain.  There’s more to voting than voting against someone.

If your idea of "spreading the wealth" is giving to charities where the administrative expenses are far, far less than those associated with government welfare, vote for John McCain.  Basically, who do you trust with your charitable dollars; the Salvation Army or Ted Stevens?

If you’re idea of fighting terrorism is engaging the enemy where he is rather than waiting for the enemy to show up in our airports with a boarding pass for Washington, DC, vote for John McCain. 

Heck, if you believe we are, in fact, in a war on terror, vote for John McCain.  If Obama doesn’t think Iraq is a front in that war, he has no clue what that war really is.  Might as well send in Sgt. Schultz to fight it.  ("I know nothing…nnnothing!")

If experience means anything to you, vote for John McCain.  If, by the word "experience" you mean registering Mickey Mouse to vote 72 times, then I gotta’ say; you keep using that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.  (Apologies to Inigo Montoya.)

If you’re idea of a free press is one that is free to ask the perfectly reasonable but tough questions without getting their access curtailed, vote for John McCain.  I wonder if Obama would treat Iran (in his "no-pre-conditions" talks) the same as WFTV if Ahmadinejad asks something inconvenient.  (Probably not.)

If you want a President who’s wife has always been proud of her country, vote for John McCain.  Michelle Obama’s view of her country depends on her country’s view of her husband.  The First Lady is a de facto ambassador for our country; we need one with thicker skin.  (Oooh, did I mention "skin"?  That might be considered racist when referring to Mrs. Obama.  Maybe I should say we want a first lady with "a more durable epidermis". )

If you want a President who knows a functioning, stable, Middle East democracy when he sees it, and isn’t willing to give terrorists free reign in Israel, vote for John McCain.  Of course, if you think spokesmen for terrorist organizations like the PLO are suitable babysitters, you’ve probably already made up your mind who to vote for.

And, frankly, there’s not much I could say to sway Obama supporters that simply refuse to acknowledge his socialist bent, the failures in other countries of his proposed policies, or the vast number of folks with whom he, not just associated with, but participated with.  It’s not that they can’t see; they just won’t see.  But you who still has your mind open, listen. 

Now is not the time to slack off.  There is a candidate who wants to take our country in the right direction, and away from ideas that have proven themselves destructive to those who have followed the piper’s sweet song, only find out later that paying him costs far more than they ever thought.  That candidate is John McCain.  When you step into the voting booth, consider this.

This is the 2nd and final part of my analysis of an open letter from Anne Rice. Part 1 was posted yesterday.

Abortion

Anne Rice spends most of her letter covering this issue, and she starts with an assertion that, to me, shows a lack of consideration of the history of the issue.

I want to add here that I am Pro-Life. I believe in the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Deeply respecting those who disagree with me, I feel that if we are to find a solution to the horror of abortion, it will be through the Democratic Party.

Ms. Rice does touch on these historical issues lightly later on, and I’ll hit them more in-depth then, but even looking at how the abortion issue generally falls between the parties today, I don’t see this as making sense. What I hear from Democrats are things like John Kerry with this sentiment:

I completely respect their views. I am a Catholic. And I grew up learning how to respect those views. But I disagree with them, as do many. I can’t legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn’t share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman’s choice. It’s between a woman, God and her doctor. That’s why I support that. I will not allow somebody to come in and change Roe v. Wade.

If one’s commitment to Christianity should be “absolute”, as Ms. Rice has said, there is a big problem with this statement, that is generally the line religious Democrats use when talking about abortion, and that is the canard about legislating one’s religious faith, or sometimes call ramming one’s religion down your throat. Civil rights are very much a moral issue, but does Sen. Kerry have the same problem with legislating that? No, he’s very willing to impose his view on KKK members, and rightly so. It’s right, it’s moral and it’s the law. Legislators all throughout our country’s history, and more so in our early history, based many of their decisions partly or mostly on their religious faith. This excuse is disingenuous.

Read the rest of this entry

The following is a repost of a blog post I wrote over a year ago (August 23rd & 24th, 2007) during the presidential primary season.  It was in response to an open letter by the author Anne Rice on her personal web site.  Ms. Rice is the author of the Vampire Lestat series of books, but, after returning to the Catholic church in 1998, stopped that project. 

I’ve searched her web site for the letter in question and cannot find a page that has it archived, although many of her other writings, going back to 1996, are on there.  It was copied and posted on other forums, including here, so you can read along at home.  (Warning: This is a link to the right-wing Free Republic web site.  If you fear cooties emanating from there, turn back now.)

I think the issues covered in this endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic party nominee are still relevant now, especially how it relates to Christians, how they can and should work through the political process, how Ms. Rice believes her choice of party advances that, and where I disagree with her. 

It was originally posted in 2 parts due to its length, and so it shall be this time. 

This is one of my longer posts, possibly the longest I’ve done on the blog. What happened was, I was reading an open letter from a Christian planning on voting a particular way, and as I read further and further into it, one objection after another kept coming to my mind, and one problem after another regarding the writer’s reasons kept getting in the way. Finally, I realized I’d have to just set aside some of my typical day-to-day blogging of the link-and-quick-comment type, and go in-depth into the problems I see with the author, and Christians in general, who vote Democratic for specifically Christian reasons, and especially regarding the social issues brought up in the letter. Pull up a cup of coffee and sit back.

Anne Rice is a Catholic author. I’ll admit to not being too well-read, but as a Protestant my knowledge of Catholic authors is even more limited. Therefore, I’m not sure how much Ms. Rice’s views are mainstream Catholic, although whether or not they are really isn’t the crux of this post. I do want to discuss the views she espouses, and espouses quite well as an author. That she is a Catholic and I am a Protestant has really no bearing on my criticism of her recent public letter dated August 10. I know Protestants who would agree with her on these issues, so this is not a denominational thing. She professes Christianity, as do I, and we have very similar goals, as far as I can tell, on the topics she discusses, and yet we’re voting differently. Ms. Rice wrote a lengthy letter to her readers on her main web site (no permalink so don’t know how long it’ll stay on the front page) about why she is endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. The reasons she lists for that endorsement, to me, run completely counter to her list of important issues and goals. If she is truly concerned about those goals, I don’t follow her endorsement, nor the endorsement of other of my friends and acquaintances of any Democrat in the current group. I want to address the inconsistencies I see in this post.

Ms. Rice starts out with her Christian and Catholic creds, which I respect and am willing to accept. She talks about how, while the separation of church and state is a good idea, the voter does not have that prohibition, and in fact must consider their vote based on their religion.

Conscience requires the Christian to vote as a Christian. Commitment to Christ is by its very nature absolute.

I agree wholeheartedly. But, she also correctly notes, we have only 2 political parties in this country. (She believes, as do I, that a vote for neither Democrat or Republican, whether it’s a non-vote or a vote for a 3rd party, is essentially a vote for one of the two major ones, no matter how you slice it.) In short:

To summarize, I believe in voting, I believe in voting for one of the two major parties, and I believe my vote must reflect my Christian beliefs.

Bearing all this in mind, I want to say quietly that as of this date, I am a Democrat, and that I support Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

And that last clause is where the disagreement begins.

Charitable Giving

The first paragraph of explanation deals with giving.

Though I deeply respect those who disagree with me, I believe, for a variety of reasons, that the Democratic Party best reflects the values I hold based on the Gospels. Those values are most intensely expressed for me in the Gospel of Matthew, but they are expressed in all the gospels. Those values involve feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, and above all, loving ones neighbors and loving ones enemies. A great deal more could be said on this subject, but I feel that this is enough.

First of all, neither the religious right nor the religious left have a lock on charitable giving. At the same time, as was noted on this post regarding a study by Arthur Brooks, conservatives outgive liberals by quite a significant amount. How does this relate to how the political parties differ in their view of the government’s role in this? Ms. Rice, I believe, falls into a trap by simplistically equating the advocacy of government charity with Jesus’ admonition to the individual to be charitable. Democrats say the government should give more, so by her reckoning thy are more in line with her Christian view. However, it has always made me wonder how when Jesus tells me, personally, to be charitable, that somehow this means that I should also use the government to force my neighbor, under penalty of jail, to be “charitable”. I put “charitable” in quotes because when there’s force involved, there’s no real act of charity. How Democrat Christians get from point A to point Z on this boggles my mind. Another statistic from Brooks’ study brings this point home; People who believe the government does not have a basic responsibility to take care of the people who can’t take care of themselves are 27 percent more likely to give to charity.

On top of this, the bureaucratic inefficiency filter that we’re all forced to funnel our “charitable” taxes through siphons money away from the needy, as does the massive fraud that goes on in a big government program that has little accountability.

Conservatives believe that forcibly taking money isn’t charity, and that it is not government’s role to rob from Peter to pay Paul, and that the way the government handles this creates dependency and causes further problems, like giving fathers a disincentive to stick around. Because of this, conservatives give more of their own money to local charities where the administrative costs are much lower. The Republican party, the current home of most conservative political ideas in this country, purports to support these goals, and while they don’t always follow those principles, they have done better at this than Democrats. An expanded role of government in the area of giving to the poor is not the best way for that to happen, and as a Christian I believe it’s not moral to force others to give when they don’t want to. Again, Jesus asks me to give; He didn’t ask me to force others to.

Ms. Rice, in ticking off a laundry list of values, seems to be falling for the framing of the issue that Democrats have put forth; welfare = caring. There are other ways to care, which can have much better results.

Part 2 tomorrow.