As Rick Perry returns to Texas to “reassess,” it’s hard to believe that nearly five months ago, he was seen as the savior of the religious right, the anointed one who would raise up an army of Christians who would, with their prayers (and their votes) deliver America from sinful ruin.
As Perry spoke last night in Iowa, I watched the expression on his wife Anita’s face. The woman who had once proclaimed that God wanted her husband to be president looked not humble or penitent, but angry.
This week Michele Bachmann didn’t exactly pray for a miracle, but predicted that she would experience one. Now everyone else is praying that the Ames Straw Poll will finally be ignored. Herman Cain is still off praying somewhere, and maybe even singing Amazing Grace, even if just to himself. Perhaps compiling a campaign coffee table book for Pokemon fans.
The conservative voters who put Santorum over the top here now have a lot of praying to do. After all, they might have been swayed by the endorsement of the Duggar family, but around the country other voters, even evangelical ones, aren’t too keen on where the 19 Kids and Counting sweethearts are coming from. The Duggars, who reject the use of birth control and believe instead they should just obey God, have described how they follow teachings of Bill Gothard, which are denounced by other evangelicals as unbiblical, a “parody of patriarchalism,” and the “basest form of male chauvinism.”
The Duggars have a lot of fans, and TLC portrays them as a wholesome all-American family, but will the Republican Party really settle on a nominee whose most conspicuous celebrity endorsers don’t even believe in dating, calling it “training for divorce?” Watch this video about their son Josh, and how he engaged in “courtship” rather than dating with his now-wife, Anna. While the Republican Party has certainly moved to the right, I do think most Republicans still like dating.
