The preacher primary

[Contrary1]

Thursday Morning Comics:



GOP leaders battle for support from the Three Kingmakers

"WASHINGTON - The Republicans’ first primary contest is next week, and it’s not in New Hampshire. It is in Orlando, at the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters. GOP presidential candidates will be there to try to generate buzz that will translate into evangelical airtime — and support in the “base” in 2008.

Unlike 2000 (and of course 2004) George W. Bush and Karl Rove don’t have the event wired. So it is wide open — just as the Republican nomination race is — and so Orlando is an important pit stop, especially for Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Mitt Romney, former Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Sam Brownback. All of them want to win the nomination by building from “the base” outward, the way it’s been done in the party since the days of Reagan.

One candidate will be conspicuous by his absence: Front-runner Rudy Giuliani. I am told that he won’t be there, but in a sense he doesn’t have to be. He’s not trying to win by getting right with the religious conservatives on cultural and faith issues. If he is going to get their votes, it will be through other means, or by default in a general election race against, say, Hillary Clinton.

The Three Kingmakers
Because there is no obvious and overpowering standard-bearer for the cause of the religious right, age-old fault lines and feuds are re-emerging among the titans who control the Sacred Satellite Dishes. Each of them thinks that he can anoint the One..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17149388/