On Moral Values
A google news search for Dean’s Sunday Meet the Press appearance shows a weird tilt in news items. Here are the news sourches for the front page:
NewsMax.com (Right-wing)
MSNBC (they, naturally, have the trascript.)
Kansas City Star
Men’s News Daily (Right-wing)
GOP-USA (I believe this is where Jeff Gannon worked, when all is said and done. Right wing.)
The Moderate Voice. (“Centrist”, an annoying designation meaning always calibrating your politics to a supposed “center”.)
Washington Times (Right-wing, though it’s an interesting article.)
Media Matters for America. (After 4 pages, we have a left-wing source.)
Red State (Right wing)
At any rate… Evidentally Dean defended his “moral values”, and disconcertingly wrapped up into that phrase religious bonafides against a charge that his supporters are, on the whole, more secular and less church-going than the public at large. A charge which, by the way, is largely true. For his part, I have no clue the depth of Dean’s religious convictions. A Democrat can get farther in the Party Primaries than a Republican — who, by necessity, must profess Jesus as the greatest Philosopher.
Bush recently made a political appearance / commencement speech at Calvin College in a college town in Michigan. Prompting some pundits to ask “Why’d he choose that college?” — a bit more liberal than Bush’s bread and butter — affiliated with Calvinism, best known to many as half the duo of the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” — is Bush trying to reach out beyond ultra-conservative Evangelicals in his Christian Crusade?
The answer to that question is: yes. And Michigan is home to a currently poll-weary Democratic Governor. And a vulnerable Democratic Senator. And a razor-thin Democratic to Kerry vote. And a rust-beltian economic / cultural mix. And those mid-west snow-belt states are key to Republican’s hopes of Cultural Expansion (the “Coastal Elites” badge is a bit scarred by the existence of that trio of Canadian-border hugging northern tier states — Illinois appears to be too far gone, but Minnesota and Michigan aren’t quiet as shaky).
So, you rebrand Christianity to rebrand Michigan. Funny that.