Have Yourself A Merry Little Scandal: Pandering To The Christian Right Is VERY Expensive ($1M) For Rick Santorum's Campaign

Bob Vander Platts doesn't come cheap.  In 2010, Newt Gingrich gave Vander Plaats' campaign to unseat Iowa judges $350,000. The Family Leader's leader also demanded a cushy paid position on Mitt Romney's staff back in 2008 in exchange for an endorsement (he didn't get it, and backed Huckabee instead).


Now word is out that Vander Plaats has received $1 million to endorse Rick Santorum and others, after which he told Michele Bachmann to bow out of the race.

Earlier this week, Santorum admitted that Vander Plaats approached the campaign with an indirect solicitation of money to help promote his support, but now other sources familiar with the talks between Vander Plaats and GOP candidates are characterizing the tactics as “corrupt.”

Of course, "pay for play" is not new in the political Christian-Right arena: it was disclosed last week that Newt Gingrich's campaign had donated $125,000 to American Family Association Action (a PAC), after which he resoundingly received an endorsement from the American Family Association itself. And it was rumored back in 2010, that Mike Huckabee sold an endorsement in the Florida gubernatorial campaign for the princely sum of $250,000. 



POWER CORRUPTS


Ever since the Christian Right re-invented itself as a voting block, its power has been unmistakable: Tony Perkins' Values Voters Summit has now been a lightning rod for Right Wing candidates courting the "social conservative" group (est. up to 25 million - or almost half of Republican votes in a Presidential election). And with pulpits jeopardizing their tax-free status in daring to endorse candidates, their power is flaunted with a righteous arrogance that almost exceeds comprehension. Indeed, it is quite amazing that the same group cries "persecution" whenever a law is passed endangering that power. Their opposition to hate crimes bills, for example only demonstrates just how much they value the control they have over their congregations. Witness the outright lies "historian" David Barton promotes in his polemic about evil "homosexual activists" in the video below.


And Vander Plaats' pronouncements about gays, Muslims and "activist judges" have sparked controversey - the kind that Vander Plaats' shrugs off as "persecution."*


So power in the Christian Right corrupts people into telling lies for the sake of control. But in the case of Vander Plaats, we now see financial gain afoot, with candidates and their campaigns willing to pay the price of endorsements and support. 


With all the "pay to play" shenanigans going on, it begs the question: where are the campaign managers in all of this? Sources referring to the $1 million in contributions to the Family Leader imply that Santorum was one of several candidates who contributed for endorsements. In a forthcoming article, we'll look at the role these pivotal figures have as drivers of the clown car we now call the GOP Presidential campaign. And as it turns out, Mike Biundo, Santorum's campaign manager, may look to be as inept as his candidate: both Vander Plaats and Santorum said that Santorum did not know about the endorsement until well after the announcement by Vander Plaats, even though Biundo was present during the announcement.*


Bachmann's Dickerson


There is no word yet on how John Dickerson, Michele Bachmann's campaign manager reacted to the story that Vander Plaats suggested that she "merge" with another faith-based candidate but it's clear that the "merge" story came after Bachmann shot out that she was asked to "quit" the race by Vander Plaats. Dickerson must have a helluva time reining in his mistress, especially since he has enough on his hands trying to formulate enough effective ads in Iowa to propel Bachmann from fourth place to the position her straw poll win put her in. 


From where we sit, John Allbaugh (Perry), Michael Krull (Gingrich) and the aforementioned Biundo probably have more to say about donations to Vander Plaats.


Whither will they fly?






*Santorum said he heard it from a blind man who, in turn, heard it from someone "in the kitchen" of the convention hall. Real good coordinating, gents.  



* From Think Progress:

The FAMiLY Leader has its own long history of anti-gay and anti-Muslim rhetoric. An early version of the group’s fidelity pledge suggested that children were better off under slaverythan they are under Obama, and the document likens homosexuality to polygamy, adultery, or polyandry, attacks gays as a public health risk, and foments the non-existent “Sharia” threat to America. Vander Plaats himself led a successful campaign to oust three state Supreme Court justicies who overturned Iowa’s anti-gay marriage law and played in instrumental part and leading Mike Huckabee to victory in Iowa in 2008.

The American Family: Sacred or Profane?

I've often asked myself what kind of organizations with the words "American" and "Family"* support someone like the Christian Right's Bryan Fischer: Fischer fulminates against gays Muslims, feminists, Native Americans and, of course, immigrants. So that begs the question: what is the American Family?

The portrait of today's American Family is not exactly Norman Rockwellian (at least not one of his earlier works). The American Family** still sits down to dinner together (over 85% do), reveres "family time" and even communicates with each other more than ever before. The problem the AFA has encountered: the American Family is more diverse than anything the AFA could have imagined. And even though groups like the AFA have taken up hate-broadcaster Michael Savage's mantra, "Diversity Equals Perversity," it looks like diversity is here to stay. 


Today's American Family may consist of various combinations: mother-father-biological children; single-mother-children; single-father-children; divorced-parents-children; single-gay-father-biological-children; gay-couple-biological-children; gay-couple-adopted-children; lesbian-couple-in-utero-children; mother-father-dependent-grandparent-children; single-man/woman/caregiver-parent. 


Add to any of the above, families with close extensions of aunts, uncles, cousins and life-long friends. Now mix it all up with different races, ethnicities, philosophies, sects and religions: now THAT is the American Family.  It's turned from the mythical nuclear rock to a snowflake: each having the same bonding of love, yet each being distinctive in its form and diversity. 


Unfortunately for America, however, the AFA and its compatriots are unable to see the beauty of these snowflakes (the new family units) and are hammering away at pockets of Right Wing America with such vitriolic determination that some people may come to believe in the superiority of being part of a rock, albeit the kind that never really existed in the first place.


If you go to the AFA's website, your first question usually is: so why isn't it called the Christian Family Association? Simply because a dynamic exists between the Right Wing concept of Christianity and the Right Wing concept of Family: they are too interdependent - one cannot live without the other. Yes, there are Right Wing Jewish families, but if we're playing a numbers game here, their number is very small; with the exception of CUFI (Citizens United For Israel - a Zionist organization founded by Pastor John Hagee), the Christian Right rarely concern themselves with Jewish (family) matters.


On the AFA website:

OUR MISSION

The American Family Association exists to motivate and equip individuals to restore American culture to its moral foundations.

To achieve their lofty goals, the AFA:

1. "Restrains evil" in the media, particularly film. 

Sort of a latter-day Catholic Legion of Decency.

2. Convinces "men of sin" to be driven to Christ. 

And that means absolutely EVERYONE. America MUST be a Christian-only nation.

3. Encourages Christians to live-out their new "holy identity."

Bludgeoning your co-workers with biblical passages and righteousness around the water-cooler is definitely OK.

4. Strengthens families and protects them from "government intrusion" and "preserves the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of a husband and wife." 

In other words, we're anti-liberal and virulently anti-gay, get over it.

And Above all, "AFA defends the rights of conscience and religious liberty from infringement by government and from subjugation in popular culture."

Since we defend RELIGIOUS liberty, atheists aren't protected by any law and it's OK to hate Muslims because, as Bryan Fischer put it, they're not really protected by the First Amendment. Oh, and Lady Gaga is our sworn enemy.

That is the AMERICAN FAMILY Association: an anti-gay, anti-Muslim, Christian-only organization that wants to mold everyone into virginal TV sitcom characters using, as Rick Warren puts it, "Whatever It Takes." 

And these days "it takes" one weapon to achieve what the AFA defines as The American Family: fear. A quick look at its website can show us disdain and fear-mongering.

Yes, their definitions are skewed in the extreme, but groups like the AFA don't realize just how many people they turn off with their UN-American, ANTI-Family (and anti-reality) stances. America has progressed (horrors! such an ugly word!) into greater acceptance and greater love of mankind through its diversity and the diversity of it core family units. In its own way, the AFA is trying to destroy the American Family.

So will Uber-Christians like Bryan Fischer ever go too far and be chastised? 

Probably not. The failure of the Christian Right to ever effectively monitor their own resulted in the unfettered rise of Fred Phelps. The damage done by Bryan Fischer has only elicited a lofty and disingenuous "we are not responsible" dismissal to such thoughts. 

So the real American Family is now under attack by organizations with "American" and "Family" in their titles; under attack by groups dedicated to the motto of "whatever it takes." And if we want to defend the sanctity of its beautiful diversity, we might have to start being as profane as our enemies. 

Sad, but true.

*E.g.: Family Research Council and American Family Association 

** The Pew Forum research done in 2008 of the "Networking" of the American Family shows just how much and how little the American Family has changed: the majority of families still eat dinner together and prize family time over all other activities. However, the makeup of the family has changed: single mothers with children, grown children with elderly parents, gay couples with children, extended families. Groups like the American Family Association will always denigrate these groups by saying that they not "real" families.