This week, the convention of Latino leaders got one GOP 2016er.
The meeting of religious conservatives is getting 13. http://t.co/FFngbSwNdd
— Rebecca Sinderbrand (@sinderbrand) June 17, 2015
While the normal people were busy with more important matters last weekend, the GOP candidates did some high-decibel pandering at Ralph Reed’s annual “Faith & Freedom Conference” — not the Klan version, the one described by professional faith hustler/GOP careerist Reed as “a bridge between the Tea Party movement and evangelical voters”. Some notes, so we’ll remember which Repub said which horrible thing come 2016…
Most Republican candidates at #FFC has mentioned Charleston, but so far zero mentions of any need to improve race relations in the South.
— Martin Gelin (@M_Gelin) June 19, 2015
JEB!, throwing aside his usual general-election-friendly reticence on the topic, humped the corpse of Terri Schiavo to general applause. As Mr. Charles P. Pierce reminds us:
… Not to appear cold but, at the time Jeb (!) stepped in and made a bad situation immeasurably worse, Terri Schiavo’s brain had atrophied to the point where “speaking” was far down the list of things she couldn’t do for herself… At the time Jeb (!) stepped in, the people in Ms. Schiavo’s hospice were already under constant siege. A nearby elementary school had been vacated for almost a month due to bomb scares. An $10,000 bounty had been placed on the head of Michael Schiavo, and one guy already had been busted by the FBI for allegedly trying to collect it. Judges had been terrorized. Jeb (!) didn’t care about any of this. (This is not to mention the fact that almost the entire country was begging people like Jeb -!- to butt out.) His dim sibling was president and he was governor of Florida and they believed there was political hay to be made out of keeping a brain-dead woman alive, and that was all that ever mattered…
Demagogue successfully excites crowd: http://t.co/HziS4Iii8R
— Daniel Larison (@DanielLarison) June 22, 2015
Politico hacks, very excited!:
… Cruz flat-out owned this event, firing up the crowd like no other candidate did — attendees were still talking about him two days after he spoke. The Texas senator delivered a rousing call to action aimed at the evangelical community, saying that 50 million of them sat home in 2012 but could make the difference in 2016. “If people of faith show up, if we stand for our faith and our liberty and the Constitution, we will win and turn the country around,” he said. To a rapt crowd, Cruz did his best Reagan impression when he promised “Morning is coming. Morning is coming.” And he tore into what he framed as the Obama administration’s assault on religious liberty — a prominent theme at the conference. When Cruz finished, the crowd mobbed him…
Late Night Open Thread: Among the Whited SepulchersPost + Comments (42)