Once A Heathen, Always A Heathen

Despite intermittent, and transparently phony attempts on the part of Democrat poobahs and operatives to pretend to "reach out" to the "religious Right," the latter don't seem to be as numbnuttedly receptive to these overtures as the Donks thought they'd be:

The liberal polling firm Democracy Corps has released the results of its latest research project. Titled The Culture Divide & the Challenge of Winning Back Rural & Red State Voters, the memo encapsulating the results of a series of focus groups paints a grim picture for Democrats. "Most [focus group participants] referred to Democrats as 'liberal' on issues of morality, but some even go so far as to label them 'immoral,' 'morally bankrupt,' or even 'anti-religious,'" report Karl Agne and Stan Greenberg from Democracy Corps.

"How can this be?," some of you may be asking. Didn't Howard Dean say. ,"Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?"

Well, not exactly. But with the sting of George Bush's re-election still fresh, they did try to sound open-minded - in their own smug, haughty, imperious way:

It's been almost ten months since Democrats promised to take "moral values" voters seriously after the drubbing this important voting bloc gave them in the 2004 election. Back then, it seemed every aspiring Democrat politician in America was ready to enroll in the Rites of Catholic Initiation for Adults or start attending an Evangelical Megachurch. "Our moral values are closer to the American people than the Republicans' are," Howard Dean preached in his campaign to become the new chairman of the Democrat National Committee. Dean's opponent Don Fowler went a step further saying, "I am a Democrat because I am a Christian, not in spite of it."

Sounds like a corollary to the "Jesus was the first liberal" canard, doesn't it? However, religious conservatives are evidently far more adept than their self-proclaimed intellectual betters at the biblical admonition to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God."

Besides, given the inflamed prejudices of those self-proclaimed intellectual betters, and the excessive self-flattery therein, it's not like the effort was more than a light mental workout:

Despite exit polls showing a plurality of voters said "moral values" was their number one issue of concern on Election Day, liberals, libertarians, and even neocons managed to cover their ears and chant "there's no such thing as a 'moral values' voter" long enough to convince themselves they were right.

It got worse. When her estranged husband and Florida state courts decided it was time for Terri Schiavo to go, Christian conservatives and some Republican politicians protested. Loudly. Congress passed a measure to grant the Supreme Court review of her case. President Bush signed it. All involved were accused of placating the Religious Right. Republicans left, right, and center were accused of being "theocrats." All the polls said people had turned on the Religious Right. The "moral values" movement was [supposedly] as dead as that poor girl in Florida. It [purportedly] all ended badly for Christian conservatives (and not at all well for Ms. Schiavo).

It soon became so gauche to be a "moral values" American, Howard Dean called Republicans a "white, Christian party." And he meant it as an epithet.

And, consequently, and completely unsurprisingly to anybody not drowning in delusions of their own deicidal hauteur, the DC memo found....:

However, as powerful as the concern over [non-moral] issues is, the introduction of cultural themes - specifically gay marriage, abortion, the importance of the traditional family unit, and the role of religion in public life - quickly renders them almost irrelevant in terms of electoral politics at the national level....these attitudes were most powerfully captured in symbolic issues such as display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings, removing God from the Pledge of Allegiance, or outlawing public manger displays at Christmastime. On each of these symbolic cases in point, there was a broad perception that Republicans would be on the side of American tradition, Judeo-Christian values, and the forgotten majority while Democrats would stand up and fight for a subversive minority seeking to erode the moral foundation of our country.

What's the, well, "moral" of this story? Simple - once a heathen, always a heathen. And bigots have a, well, "devil" of a time camouflaging their bigotry. It's like a big, ugly hairlip that the, well, "bush"iest mustache can't cover. Libs can't keep their derision of the Way concealed because it is the antithesis of everything they stand for, any more than they can throw a figurative tarp over their militant pacifism and anti-nationalist self-loathing. It's the very fiber of their being, the core identity of who they are.

And unlike in the lilliputian Clinton years, when there appeared to be very little at stake, the twin imperatives of moral foundation and national security are very much on the political front burner because both are threatened, from without and within. This is a dynamic that would constitute a formidable electoral obstacle for Democrats even if they weren't so recklessly and promiscuously contributing to it; that they are, and compulsively, is simply the exclamation point.

This conclusion was wincingly symbolized by this emphatic coincidence:

The same day Democracy Corps released its study, NARAL Pro-Choice America began airing a television ad that implies Supreme Court nominee Judge John G. Roberts supports abortion clinic bombers.

Small wonder that evangelical voters are declaring to them, "We never knew you; depart from us, you who practice lawlessness."

UPDATE: Dean Barnett has an intriguing, and reinforcing, take on the glimpse of the Democrats' political future offered by the party establishment vs. left blogosphere civil war that raged around Paul Hackett's recent and narrow congressional special election defeat in Ohio.

Here's the punchline:

Does Hackett's rhetoric portend the Democratic politics of the future as politicians try to sound angry enough to please the party's e-base? Don't bet against it. As Republican political consultant Mike Murphy observes, "The liberal blogosphere continues to grow in power," while acidly likening the situation to an "8 year-old with a machine gun."

While just a few weeks ago it seemed that liberal bloggers wanted Democratic politicians to mirror not just their rhetoric, but their substantive politics as well, the Hackett campaign suggests something else entirely: In spite of being a moderate, bloggers fell in love with Hackett based on little more than a shared fondness for juvenile insults and a mutual loathing of George W. Bush.

Indeed, prominent left-wing bloggers such as Steve Gilliard and Markos Moulitsas are in the process of formulating and promulgating a "litmus test" for Democratic politicians that is literally--and intentionally - devoid of any substantive issues. Instead, the emphasis is exclusively on style. A few of the newly-minted litmus test's requirements are that the candidate "make it clear that he opposes Bush and the Republicans, . . . act like he wants to win, . . . not distance himself from the party [and] be proud to be a Democrat."...

The newly-devised litmus test combined with the left-wing blogosphere's full-throated enthusiasm for Hackett suggests that to win the support of the blogging community, a candidate's sole real requirement is that he have his Bush-hating bona fides in proper order.

Whatever their faults, organizations such as the DCCC owe their existence to an ideology. It may be a rickety, tottering ideology - but it's something. The shift from the DCCC to the blogs may signal that the Democratic party will no longer even pretend to be a party of ideas, but will instead become a party of oppositionism somewhat akin to Great Britain's current sad sack of Tories.

Well, sheesh, "symbolism over substance" has been a Donk staple since Bill Clinton brought "Hamelot" to D.C. thirteen years ago. And anybody who has spent any time on a political message board over the past five or six years knows that Bushophobia is a partisan pandemic on the Left and shows no signs of abating.

It's yet another in a long string of ironies that the people who invented the "move on" taunt to hurl at their political enemies are, as it were, the physicians most helpless to heal themselves.

I don't know if it's as bad for the Dems as Mr. Barnett seems to think - after all, as horrible a candidate as John Kerry was, his caustic, stentorian, droning, nasal, pompous adaptation of Bushophobia got him closer to victory than even Paul Hackett managed a few weeks ago - but it may indeed raise the bar of credibility Democrat candidates across the country (and not surnamed "Clinton") have to clear in order to be viable outside the neo-crypto-Bolshevik funny farm.

[via Hugh Hewitt]