Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery gave a wide ranging interview to The Denver Post's PoliticsWest where, among other things, he dismissed the notion that the Religious Right was on the verge of a meltdown:
It’s typical of what we see during election cycles. I remember as far back as 1988 when Pat Robertson ran for president and failed. There were wide predictions of a crackup; of the Moral Majority back then, of evangelicals. Then, of course, the Christian Coalition immediately rose up and became very strong. When that organization faded, there were another spate of stories about the crackup of evangelical Christians as an influence in the public square … [O]bviously, there was a big stick swung by social conservatives in the 2004 election. The fact that George Bush won in Ohio, that very key state, because a lot of people turned out for the marriage amendment in that particular state, was deemed to be significant. Now, we’re into another cycle and the normal predictions of the crackup of evangelicalism is occurring. One of the phenomenon that gives rise to that, of course, is the fact that there is no single conservative candidate who has enough marbles for everybody in the conservative movement to want to play with. Everybody’s lacking in something. Partially, this is just the way it is. People will have to figure it out, who to support. So there’s some unsettledness. But I’d hardly call that a crack-up.
Minnery, like FRC’s Tony Perkins, also dismissed Giuliani’s pledge to nominate only “strict constructionist” judges as little more than a “politician’s promise,” and voiced his concerns about Giuliani’s past and personal life:
His being married three times. Even the fact that he has shown up on Saturday Night Live in drag. I just cringe at the thought of the TV commercials that will be forthcoming from independent leftist organizations, 527s, if Giuliani becomes the nominee. I think very few people know that he tromped across the stage in drag. I think that that might be funny in New York. That might be funny for the Saturday Night Live audience. But for middle America, I do not think that will be funny … He has two male gay friends that he moved in with after his second divorce. And that was a messy affair. And just knowing how degrading politics is, I believe that there’ll be some kind of a PAC or 527 that will engineer a lot of negative advertising out of those events, designed specifically to keep conservative Christian people from pulling the lever for him.
But Minnery doesn’t seem to think this will be enough to keep committed right-wing voters at home on Election Day, saying that “a lot of people on our side would probably swallow hard and vote for the more conservative of the two major party candidates.” As for the possibility that James Dobson might end up endorsing Mitt Romney, Minnery called it “doubtful,” citing “the tremendous difference in theological views.”
But just because Dobson isn’t happy with any of the current GOP candidates doesn’t mean he has any plans to launch his own presidential campaign:
[Dobson] likes to be in charge … He’s a leader of an organization here. He’s been in charge of it and developed it. A president is in charge of one-third of the federal government and has to deal with so many different people. I think it would be a very frustrating job for someone, who’s an organization leader, to deal with. Besides, Dr. Dobson represents evangelical Christians. I don’t think that constituency is enough to elect somebody president, although it’s an important constituency within one of the two major parties.
The other problem is that there would be too many death threats against him; his wife would say, “'Jim, if you get into that, I’ll kill you.'”
Besides that, he’s 71 years old. And, in addition to that, he doesn’t want to do it.
For that, we can all be thankful.
