I read the latest quotes from Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle and cringed, I think party because I’m used to cringing every time Angle speaks.
And yesterday I read on Weasel Zippers that she said this:
Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle sees her campaign as a battle to stop Democrats in Washington who want to expand entitlement programs and “make government our God.”
In an interview with a Christian radio network, Angle describes her effort to oust Majority Leader Harry Reid as a religious calling in “a war of ideology, it’s a war of thoughts and of faith.”
Reid, President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have pushed “entitlement programs built to make government our God,” says Angle.
And I cringed because I’ve worked on political campaigns as a press guy. And us p.r. people hate comments like this because whatever message we were trying to get across that day was just swallowed up by an unplanned comment by our candidate who never ever listens to advice.
Now, I’ve also worked as a political reporter and we luuuuuuuv when candidates say things like this. As journalists we love it because our story for the day just got written. And we know it’s going to be big news. No more page 43. I’m writing A1 material now baby.
The biggest problem with this for candidates is that uncoached candidates attract hungry reporters who also want page A1 stories. It’s blood in the water. And then news will happen whether you do anything news worthy or not because they can’t go back to the newsroom emptyhanded so the misconstruing starts and the intentional misunderstandings. Bad political quotes attract hungry political reporters and hungry political reporters beget nothing but bad for uncoachable political candidates.
So my internal p.r. man was cringing at what Angle said but when I thought about what she actually said I couldn’t help but agree with her. Secularist progressives are attempting to make government our God. That’s what all BIG GOVERNMENT types do. That’s what the Soviet Union did, that’s what China did. Come to think of it, it’s not even a controversial statement. We’ve seen just in the last election, ample evidence of the deification of BIG GOVERNMENT candidates. Remember all the pics the media promulgated like this:
Sharon Angle and Sarah Palin are honest uncoached politicians. I may cringe sometimes when they speak or I may agree completely, sometimes both at the same time. What becomes of them says a lot about where we are as a country.
The two of them may become bellwethers or cautionary tales. They are rare in that they are honest. They don’t take to scripting. This is both refreshing and dangerous because if people are looking for honesty from their political leaders like they say they are, Sharon Angle and Sarah Palin are in your face with unscripted honesty. But if Sharon Angle becomes a cautionary tale this November about how saying what you actually think causes electoral damage we will simply get decades more of scripted statements and teleprompter reading Presidents.
It’s our choice.
H/T Weasel Zippers
August 5, 2010 at 5:31 pm
It all comes back to the question of where the basis of human dignity eminates. Is it from God or man? Is it 'Human rights grant human dignity', where human rights come from governmental laws? Or is it Human dignity grants human rights, where inherent human dignity comes from God.
This is why I think the SS "marriage" proponents want government blessed "marriage": without the laws backing it up, they won't have dignity in their freely associated social arrangement.
Gerry
August 5, 2010 at 9:23 pm
It makes sense…big-government proponents have spent much of the past 50 years working at replacing fathers, of course they want to replace our Father.
August 6, 2010 at 6:05 am
Why may you cringe when they speak?
August 6, 2010 at 9:54 am
Did Sarah Palin endorse Angle? I was just wondering if things could get worst for her.
August 6, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Not only should we look for and value honesty, we should begin challenging the left's demand for "educated" candidates… educated by leftist universities, brainwashed to tow the socialist line…. we can do better than Harvard and Yale combots.
August 6, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Give 'em hell, Angle!
August 9, 2010 at 4:13 pm
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the god." -G.K. Chesterton
August 9, 2010 at 5:41 pm
And here's the irony. Most "progressive catholics" who are the first to warn me we can't undo abortion laws because we don't live in a theocracy, are the biggest supporters of their state to act exactly like their Church- a charitable institution to feed the poor, instruct the ignorant, to house the homeless, and clothe the naked.
Church and state, according to a liberal, cannot in truth be separated because they both are meant to do the same thing – corporal works of mercy and leave my soul 'the hell out of it'!