Time to Channel JFK
The Dallas Morning News editorializes that it's time for Mitt Romney to give a JFK-like speech about his religion and how it shouldn't disqualify him from the Presidency. The News recognizes the catch here. JFK ran in a time when there was a broad consensus on the separation of church and state. He had to convince voters, even conservative Christians, that he believed that, too. Today, conservative Christians positively want religion to direct public policy, just not Romney's religion.
The other catch, not mentioned by the News, is that Catholicism was generally well known in JFK's time. Today, most Americans still don't have a clue what Mormonism is all about. Even though Romney's Mormonism may be holding him back in the polls, the religion is not being discussed openly in the campaign. If Romney makes the speech the News urges, that changes. If the press starts airing all the silly beliefs that Mormons believe, will that really help Mitt Romney? His silence on the subject tells us what he thinks the answer is.
Stop the Presses: Dead Man Didn't Vote!
Surprise! Auditors found 49,000 dead people, felons and duplicates on state voter rolls. So says Christine DeLoma on Dallas Blog. She warns us that these dead people are "potential ineligible voters." She leaves the impression that we should purge the voter rolls and do it now.
Buried deep within her story, she tells us that this makes up a miniscule 0.4% of all eligible voters. More telling, she admits that "there were no instances of ineligible voters casting a ballot during the May 12, 2007 special election." None.
She details all the usual bookkeeping errors that led to outdated public records, but isn't in the least concerned that these same bookkeeping errors might erase eligible voters from the rolls as well. Overzealous purges almost guarantee it. The bookkeeping errors in those cases won't always be so innocent.
Texas ought to be more concerned about increasing the pitifully low turnouts our elections now draw. And not let conservatives like Christine DeLoma, who has worked for Republican politicians and anti-abortion groups, use scare stories about dead people on the rolls to serve as cover for our politically motivated Republican Secretary of State to disenfranchise the poor and African-Americans and Hispanics, who happen to be the groups that tend to vote Democratic.
1 comment:
Gov Romney is no longer silent. His campaign announced plans for him to address "Faith in America" in a speech later this week in Texas. My guess is that he's decided he needs to throw a "Hail Mary" pass to save his campaign in Iowa, where he sees his lead slipping away to the evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee (pun intended ;-)
Post a Comment