Deal Hudson Discovers Potential Potholes With GOP and Religious Conservatives Alliance

Deal Hudson has a great piece up Are Religious Conservatives and the GOP Heading for Divorce?
I share those concerns!!!

Deal says in part:

There will surely be those who applaud McCain for distancing himself from the "fanatics" on the Religious Right. They will argue that McCain will gain moderate support as a result. Maybe so, but much more important is the message this sends to the religiously conservative voters who have given the GOP its winning edge for nearly 30 years.

Ronald Reagan won Evangelical support with a now-famous line at a 1980 National Affairs Briefing held in Dallas: "I understand that you can't endorse me, but I'm here to endorse you." Some historians point to this moment as the official beginning of the Religious Right movement.
The unanswered question raised by McCain's words on May 22 is whether he will be viewed by Evangelicals as explicitly reversing Reagan's endorsement. How many Evangelical voters will feel rejected along with Reverend Hagee?

Now as I mentioned last week Deal did a lot of good work with having Hagee meet with Catholics and others to have true dialogue and mend some fences.

The problem is that part of the problem is that Mr Hudson , , Bill Donohue of the Catholic watch dog group and many others did not show this caution and outlook early on. This was when they were going after Huckabee. I understand the tension and heat of a primary campaign but I am afraid things I was yelling back in January are now cause of concerns. I find this all very predictable.

For instance compare the tone of Deal's latest column with his post Mike Huckabee's Anti-Catholic Problem way back in 1/02/08. These often reckless charges and rushing like a bull in a china shop shouting Anti Catholic charges set a tone and a dynamic that was fraught with danger if not handled properly. In fact it sparked a tad of debate with Mr Hudson(whom I respect a great deal) and Deacon Keith Fournier who was covering the race for Catholic Online and was a Huckabee supporter.

This nonsense started way back when Brownback's and Huckabee's campaign staff got into a fracas all over a email some yahoo pastor sent that said he supported Huckabee. I noted then way back in August Governor Huckabee Does Not Need To Apologize to Senator Brownback or to Catholics . The real problem was not the Brownback or Huckabee official campaign people but the assorted people that piled on that knew better.

This tone that developed early in the Republican primary season that engaged Catholic, Mormons, Evangelicals ,opposing theological beliefs and viewpoints, and usual allies in the public square was a dangerous game. The ground rules here have always been fuzzy and not well developed. Partly by design so to avoid the topic.

Hagee is just a small part of the problem. If people had just used google and discovered how many Republicans and Democrats (including Catholics) deal with Hagee then perhaps more people would have used caution early on.

I am not as pessimistic as Deal on the consequences yet. But it is a concern.

Still it would have been nice if Catholic political commentators had done excellent work like this and this had been done in January before the Genie got of the bottle.

At the end of the day we have Governor Huckabee that has is smeared with Anti Catholic allegations, McCain wrongly being percieved as not giving a damn, and now a possible fracture in an alliance. It did not have to happen.

Update- Pro Ecclesia has his take here at Deal Hudson: "Are Religious Conservatives and the GOP Heading for Divorce?"