Democrats Firting With Disaster? Attacking Palin and Pentecostals

That is in the air. I heard a NPR story and seen various things on the web inquiring in Gov Palin's Church. Pentecostals can at times take in a broad group of people. Palin appears to be more of a Assembly of God tradition but that Pentecostal tradition is there. Now there is are huge differences and tension between lets say the Assembly of God and UPC (Oneness Pentecostals). Still it has been my experience that politics wise they watch each others back

THIS WOULD BE A HUGE MISTAKE FOR THE DEMS. I suspect three people would panic. First my own Louisiana Senator Democrat Mary Landrieu who got the Pentecostal vote (UPC version) last time. She won because of that. I worked for the Republican Suzie Terrell and we were promised that vote. Pentecostals in the UPC often vote in bloc. Guess what on election night those heavy Pentecostal Parishes went To Democrat Mary Landrieu. This just shows that the talking heads and pundits have no clue at times about their base. Pentecostals while conservative often are still a democrat vote. Talk about a schism that would never heal

The second (to be more exact second and third) would be the CLINTONS. Bill and Hillary have close relations to the Pentecostals and they have been often loyal supporters.

Any attack of Plains faith (and again I am not sure just how Pentecostal it is) could backfire because I suspect it would done in a clumsy way.

Further it is even more complicated. Huckabee it can be argued handled the whole Pentecostal Charismatic thing wrong. Many hardshell Baptist and Fundamentalist were not amused when Huckabee kept calling himself Bapcoastal. I truly believe that is the reason he lost South Carolina. Fred Thompson carried those Northern Counties and I think a good bit of it had to do with the tension between Pentecostal and Baptists. Those folks up their resent the PTL thing that is just across the border. That is a small example of the pit you go into here. IN the end the Dems could very well do long lasting damage to a actual conservative oriented voting bloc that still votes for them in some degree.

As a GOP guy I say go ahead. But just looking at this as a politcal matter it would be a huge practical mistake. One they start the attack they can not control it. Pretty soon the messanger are people that generally look down on people of faith.

I can not even tell you had bad that would hurt dems as to Hispanics that tend be Catholic Charismatic and if not Catholic Pentecostal.

If this becomes a theme it will backfire

Update - The New York Times had a very fair I thought and well balanced article on this here