Santorum staffer questions whether God wants women presidents
A staffer in Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign is under fire for an email suggesting a female commander-in-chief could be at odds with the Bible’s teachings.
The Des Moines Register last week reported that Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director, Jamie Johnson, sent an email over the summer asking, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?”
Michele Bachmann, a social conservative who campaigned heavily in Iowa, competed with Santorum over the conservative evangelical vote in the Iowa caucuses. She dropped out of the race after a dismal finish in the Iowa race.
This weekend Peter Waldron, Bachmann’s faith outreach coordinator, said the email was proof that Santorum had engaged in a “sexist strategy” to sabotage Bachmann. He demanded an apology from Santorum and called for Johnson’s firing.
The recent spat brings the issue of sexism in conservative politics to the fore again. When Bachmann ended her campaign, political observers wondered whether conservative perceptions of women and Bachmann’s own alignment with the Christian right and disavowal of feminism had been her undoing.
The Des Moines Register said that in the final weeks of her campaign Bachmann’s aides began to complain that sexism was a problem in Iowa’s religious conservative community, even as her aides deflected questions from reporters on the topic.
from Reuters Investigates:
Following the money in O’Donnell’s campaign
Mark Hosenball has been in Delaware and Pennsylvania reporting on the midterm election campaign for our special report "Conservative donors let Christine O'Donnell sink."
If that's not enough O'Donnell for you, here's his report from a bastion of conservative thinking in Delaware:
By Mark Hosenball
Republican Delaware senate candidate Christine O'Donnell may be the darling of both national and local Tea Party groups. But she's not particularly beloved at one of Delaware's most august and esteemed conservative organizations.
Among the more venerable institutions of modern American conservatism is the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an organization based in a mansion in suburban Wilmington. The Institute, dedicated to the promotion of conservative principles on American college campuses, has an impeccable pedigree: its first president was the godfather of American conservative thought, William F. Buckley Jr.
But if records filed in Federal court in Wilmington are any guide, it is one of the Delaware conservative organizations least likely to be campaigning aggressively in support of Christine O'Donnell's Senate bid. This is because both the Institute and O'Donnell are still smarting over an ugly lawsuit O'Donnell filed against the group after she claimed that they had unlawfully fired her as their director of communications and public affairs in 2004.
Highlights from O'Donnell's grievance against the Institute, originally written up by O'Donnell herself in a rambling 55 page Federal Court complaint, were reported in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine shortly before the Delaware GOP primary and then given added publicity on the Delaware Republican Party's official website.
As November approaches, the radical candidates who have been given so much support by the media are losing their leads in polling. The so-called tsunami of right wing politics will be turned back by the bulkhead of common sense.
Steele staying put
“I ain’t going anywhere,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said on Thursday, in response to calls for his resignation from critics in his own party, MSNBC reported.
“I’m here. I’m here,” Steele said at the launch of the Colorado Republican Party’s 2010 “Victory” headquarters.
Steele brushed aside the criticism, calling it a “distraction.” With victory in the November midterm elections at stake, Steele said he was focused on “winning.”
“Look, every time something happens, people go, ‘Oh, you should step down, step down.’ Well, the reality of it is that’s not happening, so stop the noise on that,” Steele said.
Steele ran into trouble when he was caught on tape saying the war in Afghanistan is a “war of Obama’s choosing” and suggesting that it can’t be won.
After that, some prominent conservatives, including William Kristol and Liz Cheney, said it was time for Steele to go.
While not voicing an opinion on whether the Republican party leader should go or stay, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel joined the chorus of critics on Thursday. In an interview on “PBS NewsHour” the Democrat said Steele’s view of the war was “a horrible way and a wrong way to look at it.”
GOP’s Steele – political elite has been blind-sided
Recent electoral wins have pulled the Republican Party out of a tailspin that started at the height of its power in 1994, but it will be well-selected local candidates, more than the national party, that drives the agenda in November’s mid-term elections.
So says Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Most political pundits expect the GOP to pick up many House and Senate seats in the fall as part of a backlash against the incumbent Democrats and frustration over the weak economy and high unemployment.
“This fall I think you’ll see much more reliance on the candidates carrying the water in their states,” rather than the national party apparatus, Steele said during a lively exchange with students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
In victories such as the recent upset win by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, “we have trusted the candidates to shape the ground game and the campaigns and the messages,” Steele said. Brown was elected to Ted Kennedy’s old U.S. Senate seat in January, a victory that surprised the Democratic Party and deprived them of the 60-seat supermajority needed to pass legislation over Republican procedural hurdles.
Steele said letting candidates shape their own campaign and message took advantage of populist sentiment at work across the United States.
“People are taking control and they are shaping the agenda. … If you don’t believe me, ask the truck driver named Scott Brown. Ask the New Jersey governor named Chris Christie. There’s a certain dynamism that’s starting to explode across the country, and the political elite are not awake to it.”
Book? What book? GOP asks Steele
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele is once again at odds with his party. This time it’s for calling for active opposition of the Obama agenda. What’s wrong with that, you ask. Well, he did it in a book. A book GOP leaders knew nothing about until it hit the shelves.
According to Amazon.com, Steele’s book, “Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda,” “throws down the gauntlet,” and makes an argument for “abandoning ‘conservatism-lite,’ returning to core conservative principles, and launching an uncompromising campaign for limited government.”
The book is said to be highly critical of the party and has angered Republican congressional leaders who feel such a blueprint for the party should have included their input. Some GOP leaders only learned of the book when Steele began promoting it in television appearances this week.
To make matters worse, the book tour has been speckled with controversial remarks from Steele.
On Monday, Steele appeared on Fox News Channel and said he did not believe Republicans could win back a majority in the House in 2010.
Later in the week, he told ABC News that those angry with his remarks need to “get a life.”
He added, “If you don’t want me in the job, fire me. But until then, shut up. Get with the program or get out of the way.”
Still publishers are slower than most of our speedy lives. Competiton? Competition is fine, it is even better when it does not have Marxists of the Democrat Party trying to stop it.
I was an investigative journalist in Boston in the 70′s during the White administration. So I come with a journalist’s perspective to this post.
What a stupid news story! So what if one of Santorum’s staffers has a private opinion about women leading the nation? How exactly does that tell us ANYTHING about the candidate? (No, I am not a Santorum supporter).
I can’t believe there’s not more news out there worth of Reuters. Can you find any NEWS stories. Can you explore the major issues and contrasts and feed us some NEW facts? Can you uncover something the public needs to know? I haven’t seen ONE good story come from the media uncovering ANYTHING Barak Obama is doing or has done in the dark. Somebody there look into his ties with Islam. There real news there if you get behind his relationship to CAIR. Financially follow the path to Soros. Let’s see some real news. OK?