GOP get out the vote events BOMB

[Dardedar]

"Stand For The Family" Events Bomb

Focus on the Family has cancelled two of their “Stand for the Family Events” scheduled to be held in giant auditoriums in cities across the country — moving them instead to much smaller venues and in one case to a local church where the admission will be free of charge! Talk about desperate.

Unless Focus announces otherwise, there is no doubt that these are a result of a general disinterest in the Godfather of the religious right i.e. low ticket sales. This is not turning out to be the October they hoped for. Get all the details after the jump.

You’ll remember that in August, Focus on the Family announced a massive campaign to influence the elections in eight targeted states. The campaign was touted as the largest political effort by the religious right since the heyday of the Christian Coalition and reportedly combines a massive voter registration effort, the distribution of voter guides, and a series of high profile “Stand for the Family” events across the country featuring both Dobson, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, and Gary Bauer.

We’ve heard through the grapevine that the voter registration efforts are struggling, but now here’s some hard proof that these groups are not being met with the fanfare they had hoped or planned for.

Two of the three Stand For the Family events with Dobson and Perkins were cancelled and moved to much smaller venues. The first, on October 3rd in St Paul was initially to be held at the Xcel Energy Center, capable of holding 18,000 depending on the configuration, however at the last minute it was moved to the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, with a capacity of a little under 6,000 — there were less than half that many there.

You’d think that the upcoming event in the bible belt city of Nashville might prove more successful. Wrong. The October 16th event was to be held at the Nashville Auditorium, whose arena holds nearly 10,000. This event was just cancelled and moved to a local church where admission will be FREE OF CHARGE!

Talk about desperate. This only plays into the notion that it isn’t just the social conservative political leadership that is “losing its grip” over evangelicals; it’s the religious right leadership itself.

What will it take for our leadership to stop paying lip service to these extremists. When real issues are on the table — such as Iraq and the economy — the religious right just can’t compete. We already know that leadership has contempt for them. Now that there is evidence that they can’t even deliver their constituency its time to push them out of Washington’s inner circles.

Anyone in Nashville want to head to a free event with Dobson and Perkins?

link

[Betsy]

This is related:

WASHINGTON - The 2006 election is shaping up to be a repeat of 1994. This time, Democrats are favored to sweep Republicans from power in the House after a dozen years of GOP rule.

Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the latest Associated Press-AOL News poll found that likely voters overwhelmingly prefer Democrats over Republicans. They are angry at President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, and say Iraq and the economy are their top issues.

At the same time, fickle middle-class voters are embracing the Democratic Party and fleeing the GOP — just as they abandoned Democrats a dozen years ago and ushered in an era of Republican control.

"I don't think the Republican Party represents what I stand for. The guys I golf with, we're in the middle class, we're getting hurt," says Joseph Altland, 73, a retired teacher in York, Pa. He is a registered Republican but says he is considering becoming an independent.

"I don't care if I vote for Happy the Clown, just so it's not who's there now," said Mary Nyilas, 51, an independent voter from Cologne, N.J. She said she would do everything she could to "vote against the powers that put us in this situation" in Iraq.

BETSY:

I'm with Mary. Go, Happy the Clown, Go!


the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/election_ap_poll

[LaWood]

From the GOP Library

# In 1981, Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne wrote a book called Sisters, which featured a lesbian love affair, brothels and attempted rapes. In 1988, Lynne Cheney wrote about a Republican vice president who dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. (Don't we wish!)

# Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich co-wrote a thriller called 1945, featuring such titillations as biting foreplay, "pouting sex kitten," "exotic mistress" and "after-bout inhalation." At one point, the mistress of the president's chief of staff sits "athwart" her lover's chest and hisses that he must tell her a secret "or I will make you do terrible things."

# Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich co-wrote a thriller called 1945, featuring such titillations as biting foreplay, "pouting sex kitten," "exotic mistress" and "after-bout inhalation." At one point, the mistress of the president's chief of staff sits "athwart" her lover's chest and hisses that he must tell her a secret "or I will make you do terrible things."

# In 1996, former Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby wrote The Apprentice, a novel that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape.

# In 1999, former GOP Governor William Weld said of his book, Big Ugly, "I think of the theme of this book is sex and money meets the great outdoors."

more at
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/ ... brary.html

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The Rs have NEVER represented the middle class - but they did a darn good job of convincing the middle class otherwise. The backlash comes as at least some of the middle class (and the evangelicals) realize they've been betrayed. Same reason southerners of my grandparents' generation didn't like carpetbaggers (yankees who came south for the "spoils of war") but wouldn't even speak to a scalawag (southerners who did the same).

[Doug]

The Rs have NEVER represented the middle class - but they did a darn good job of convincing the middle class otherwise. The backlash comes as at least some of the middle class (and the evangelicals) realize they've been betrayed.

DOUG
Right. After years of "Tax Cuts!!!" some people finally woke up, put down the gun, and realized that they're going broke getting their "money back."

Or maybe they finally realized that, despite the Republican mantra, they really can't spend it more wisely than the government. Especially if gas prices suck it back up.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The problem is they've always been aiming those guns at the wrong people.