Integrity and Political Behavior

by Gary Berg-Cross

How and why Eric Cantor lost to (convincingly) to a Tea Party challenger has been a big story in Washington. The political elites and chattering class of pundits didn't see it coming, but flash-mob hypothesized about it. One early theory of the “shocked and bewildered”, as Time put it, was religious and cultural in tone:

“One of the more fascinating threads that emerged from the cacophony of ideas put forward in the days following the primary was the effort to find a Jewish dimension to the story. Cantor, the House Majority Leader, was the highest ranking Jewish lawmaker in American history, with aspirations to be Speaker of the House. When one adds to that the fact that Brat is a religious Christian who speaks frequently of his faith, the temptation to uncover a Jewish angle became irresistible. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the leading Jewish weekly the Forward, and a variety of other publications duly turned out articles examining, from every perspective, the Jewish and religious sides of the election…. David Wasserman, a normally sensible political analyst, got things going with a much-quoted statement to the Times suggesting that anti-Semitism was at play in Cantor’s defeat. Cantor was culturally out of step with his redrawn district, according to Wasserman, “and part of this plays into his religion. You can’t ignore the elephant in the room.” Sensationalist headlines soon followed. The Week, a news magazine, ran a story entitled “Did Eric Cantor lose because he’s Jewish?” And the Forward ran an opinion column with the headline “Did Eric Cantor Lose Because He’s Jewish? You Betcha.”

But there was no elephant in the room. There wasn’t even a mosquito in the room. “Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, a writer and lecturer, was President of the Union for Reform Judaism from 1996 to 2012. His writings are collected at ericyoffie.com.

Culture may have played a part (Eric Cantor was called the leading advocate for Jewish/Israeli issues in Congress) and we’ll have to see if conservative Jewish pols and evangelical Christian pols start to diverge. But another factors seems to be Cantor being perceived as lacking in integrity and political deftness. As Time also noted:

“Cantor’s problem was less ideology and more a sense that he stood more for his own ambition than for any definable policies. He frequently reinvented himself with splashy policy speeches, and toured the country raising money and gathering chits for an eventual run for House Speaker.”

There are several character issues here about what Cantor really stood for (aside from what some presume his conservative Jewish culture.). These were noted by a number of observers:

“[It's a] serious wake up call to all incumbents,” said Scott Reed, the top political strategist for the establishment-friendly Chamber of Commerce. “Time for candidates to run like they are running for sheriff… not prime minister.”

I think this is a point to note. In a functioning democracy the welfare of constituents (there perception o this at least) are the ultimate law, at least every 2, 4 or 6 years.

To his up close constituents Cantor showed a mix of avarice, as demonstrated in his numerous steak feasts mixed with a hint of phoniness, folly & cowardice. It’s was, in part, a classic words vs behavior issue. Cantor tried to have it both ways on so many things.  Was he loyal to his base and constituents or to Wall St. and lobbyists?  What does his behavior show?

What did he stand for on immigration reform? His early rhetoric on last year’s government shutdown that had excited the Tea-base (and sunk GOP’s poll numbers)

ended up making him look weak.  It was not enough that Cantor pose as a tea party conservative—his actions must be tea party peevish.  Without real action the veneer, the sheen of words wears off. As Cicero said, “false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.”

Cantor like many of the privileged pols we have now (Jewish or otherwise) forgot that reputation and integrity are important. People expect that when in power you will follow through on what you say you’re going to do. It's walking the walk.

Cantor’s credibility eroded rather than built over time if only because people who heard his words could see the contrast to his actions as well as his paid for steak dinners. Perhaps you still can't fool all American voters for very long. Something must ring true.

In the end people and policy are more important than politics...or ideology.

Lights, camera, Religo-Conservative Action! A new Front on the Culture Wars

By Gary Berg-Cross

 

Despite what Former Pennsylvania Senator, and foot-in-mouth 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum says, I was surprised to read that he has joined the movie industry.  Well  a very faith-based movie studio.  As reported in the Washington Times Rick will be the new CEO of the Dallas, Tx-based EchoLight. 
Wow, Texas is really gathering some conservative culture warriors.  Let the culture wars begin!  Well I guess they haven’t stopped just getting ready to ramp up.

 

Santorum was interviewed by The Christian Post at the International Christian Retail Show at the America's Center Convention Complex in St. Louis, Mo and offered this.

"I've been involved in the culture for a long time.

 

Yes, the culture.  Christian/Catholic culture. Bashing the Gays.  Wars on Women type cultural discussion.  All to be toned down and slid into subliminal, entertaining but progandistic stories. 

“I think we have an opportunity to present good, quality, entertaining content for folks out there who don’t believe that what’s being produced in Hollywood is meeting their values in a way they feel comfortable,” 

To be fair Rick has inspired some media culture. He reportedly inspired 'True Blood' Season 5, so says series creator Alan Ball.

 

If you are behind what the Christian right is selling you can catch up with guidance from Christiancinema.com. They already list best-selling Christian videos.

1.		Last Ounce of Courage - DVD
		2.	This Is Our Time - DVD
		3.	Left Behind: The 4-DVD Boxed Collection
		4.	Kirk Cameron presents: Monumental
		5.	Love Comes Softly Complete Set - 10 Collection
		6.	The Book of Esther
		7.	Divination -
		8.	Home Run -
		9.	Jimmy - DVD
		10.	The Resolution [from the movie COURAGEOUS] - Print

I must admit that I couldn't find reviews of these on Rotten Tomatoes, so I don't know how ripe they are.  

Now EchoLight has entered to help get the word, I mean Word out:

 

EchoLight Studios and the Support Military Foundation have teamed up to help entertain and inspire families around the world. Whether you're a NASCAR fan, or have a loved one in the military, or just love watching movies together, we hope that these movies will move you. 

EchoLight Studios, founded only in 2011, is the first vertically integrated faith-based movie studio to offer production financing, marketing and distribution across all releasing platforms according to a release from the organization. Here’s an example from their site.

 

The Redemption of Henry Myers

It’s not who you are. It’s who you become. EchoLight’s first theatrical release rides into theaters this fall. 

It’s already in the unholy, holy alliance business having partnered with Lynchburg, Va.-based Liberty University to produce films from that school’s cinematic arts program. First a stream of Liberty U lawyers, now this.  

I know what films the T-party Reps will be screening in coming years.

I sure hope we don’t have an EchoLight Film Fest for a while.

Images

Santorum: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/santorum-head-faith-based-movie-studio-article-1.1381178

EchoLight images, from their site.

Atheist and Tea Party Favorability Ratings

By Gary Berg-Cross

I’ve seen this good news/bad news type of statement in a number of places now:

Across the larger American political spectrum, the Tea Party is even less popular than “Muslims” and “atheists”. You can see a chart rating favorability of groups (poor (65%), Blacks, Catholics…down to Muslims, Christian Right, Atheists (37%), Sarah Palin (32%) and on the bottom the Tea party with around 32% favorability).

First the longer story on the good part.

It’s fine with me that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. Earlier surveys like the New York Times/CBS News one found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Tea Party, only 21 percent had a favorable opinion while 46 percent thought that they didn’t know enough to judge. Not knowing how to gauge the Tea Party may partially do to the fact they some Tea Members don’t really expose themselves to deep discussion. Former candidate Christine O’Donnell walked off the Piers Morgan Tonight show not wanting to answer a question about gay marriage. She said she hadn’t come on the show to deal with “a rude talk- show host” (or I guess hard questions that critical thinking produces), but to promote her book and, I guess, the way it pro-packages talking points.

So people are getting onto the Tea Party dodge, but its support numbers have slipped only slightly to 20 percent. So there are true believers out there who like to talk as it the Tea party is a really new animal. But outside of this core its unfavorable ratings have more doubled to 40%. This may be because the Party now has elected spokesman who have taken uncompromising positions that yield visibly negative consequences, such as the US credit downgrade or anti-union laws. They are also increasingly seen as anti-gay and too eager to mix religion and politics. That’s a conclusion supported by the 2 researchers who found atheists and Muslims are more popular than the Tea Party movement. More on that in a moment.

David E. Campbell, political scientist at Notre Dame and Robert D. Putnam, professor of public policy at Harvard analyzed data from a survey sample of 3,000 Americans for their 2007 book "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us" “.”By going back to many of the same respondents, the researchers gleaned several interesting facts about the tea party (beside the fact that atheists and Muslims are more popular than the Tea Party movement). The recent update provides some empirical evidence for the real nature of the Tea Party. Polling before and after the rise of the Tea Party, Campbell and Putnam identified the two characteristics that were likely to turn someone into a Tea Partier. It’s no real surprise these are:

• being strongly active in and identified as Republican politics and
• identifying with the religious right which is consistent with the February Pew study that found that 69 percent of white evangelicals agree with the Tea Party.

Here are some of the other characteristics that Putnam & Campbell report:

• Tea Party supporters are typically: white and unfriendly toward immigrants and Blacks, as well as self reportingly “deeply religious”.
• Tea Party supporters typically want religion in government.
• It’s not a wild assumption that they want to this religion to be of the Christian fundamentalist variety (no Muslim influence allowed).
• They approve of religious leaders engaging in politics and political leaders engaging in religion.
• So besides Rick Perry’s event, Tea Party supporters typically approve of things like the National Day of Pray, and formalizing the national motto to: “In God We Trust”.
• Despite using the Constitution in their talk they have little or no sympathy for the Constitutional Principle of Separation of Church & State.
• The survey suggests that, Tea Party supporters don’t believe that that this is really stated in the Constitution as a Principle.
• Instead that is just an idea invented by liberal, secular, atheistic agents to keep religion ( and “True Americans” such as graduates of Bob Jones University) out of government
• Putnam and Campbell also report that Tea Party rank and file is much more religious than the Tea Party's leaders of say their overriding concern is a smaller government. "But not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government."
• Tea Party supporters idea of a good presidential candidate in 2012 is: a white, fiscally conservative, Christian fundamentalist who prays earnestly and in public (could be from Texas).

As I said, the good news is that the survey shows that while Americans in general have become somewhat more fiscally conservative over the past 5 years, they are typically opposed to mixing religion in politics the way the Tea Party prefers. Even this America growing more conservative believes that mixing religion with politics is too extreme.

The same survey put the Tea Party below 23 other entries including Barrack Obama, Sarah Palin, Republicans, Democrats and Atheists. That last part if the disappointing part. Atheists were rated higher that Sarah Palln and the Tea Party but were right there on the bottom with less than a 40% favorability rating. At least the category of “non-religious” scored higher at 51%, just below Democrats and above Obama.

A 75 year old atheist wrote in on the American Grace Blog asking about the rating and wondering if a different term like non-believe would have faired better since atheist may be identified with “people who are confrontational/militant and want to get a rise out of people or choose deliberately to alienate religious people.

It was interesting to hear Robert D. Putnam’s reply:

“ It’s useful to distinguish three different sorts of people who are, like you, not into religion. First, some people use the term “atheist” to describe themselves and their beliefs. That was what Paul Solman asked me about in the excerpt that appeared in the video, and as I told him, only about 0.1% of Americans describe themselves that way. (I’m drawing on a large nationwide random survey that accurately represents the whole adult population. Ours were entirely confidential, private, and non-judgmental interviews. Many other researchers have found the same thing.)

Second, exactly as you say (and as I explained in a portion of the longer interview that was not broadcast), some people say they don’t believe in God, whether or not they call themselves “atheists.” That’s a larger group, but still not very large. We asked people “Are you absolutely sure, somewhat sure, not quite sure, not at all sure you believe in God or are you sure you do not believe in God?” (We asked parallel questions about heaven, hell, life after death, and horoscopes.) Of all American adults. 3.6 % say they are sure they do NOT believe in God, another 2.2% say they are “not at all sure” that they believe in God, and 4.6% say they are “not quite sure” they believe in God. So somewhere between 4% and 6% of Americans could reasonably be considered atheists, and another 5% might be called agnostics (though very few of them would use that term). You may be surprised to find that a substantial minority of those atheists and agnostics (in this second sense) are found in the pews on Sunday-that is, they attend religious services even though they have doubts about God. (St. Augustine put himself in that category.) Again, all these figures are entirely consistent with the results reported by many other researchers.

Third, a significantly larger group of Americans (17%) say that they have “no religion,” when we ask them what religion they identify with, if any. Moreover, this third, larger group is heavily concentrated among younger Americans (27% of Americans under 30 say they have no religion), so we (and other researchers) call them the “young nones.” As I explain in the book and in an op-ed that will appear in the L.A. Times this weekend, the young nones are a very interesting and important group, but only a minority of them are really “atheists,” since virtually none of the nones use that term themselves, and many of them say they DO believe in God. In short, alienation from organized religion is not at all uncommon, especially among younger Americans, but atheism itself actually is uncommon.”

Putnam says there is more in the book, but it certainly is a chilling idea to be lumped in the bottom portion of the scale.