Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback refuses to back off his attacks on Mitt Romney, saying that the facts on Romney's pro-choice credentials are clear. Normally, Republican spats don't interest me, but this is one to watch for two reasons.
First, Romney is trying to weasel out of positions he stated publicly. Flip-Flopping was the weapon of choice used against John Kerry in 2004, and it was effective because the Republicans never let up on it. It will be interesting to see if it works as well in a Republican primary.
Second, and of most interest, is that Brownback is making these attacks via internet video . I think we will see a lot more of candidates traded charges over the internet, not just on television. This is an early test of whether the internet is an effective place to make campaign attacks, and so it bears watching.
When a modern candidate makes a claim of religious bigotry (think Mitt Romney), it's usually in regard to some relatively benign slight. But Sam Brownback is right (now there's a sentence you don't here very often), his religion was slandered by a supporter of Gov. Mike Huckabee:
According to the Catholic League, a letter "is being circulated among evangelicals in Iowa asking them not to split the Christian vote between former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback; they are urged to vote for Huckabee, an evangelical, over Brownback, a Roman Catholic."
The letter was written by Pastor Tim Rude of Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights, Iowa. A Huckabee volunteer.
He writes that "Huckabee is an evangelical. He has not learned how to speak to evangelicals; i.e. Bush 41 & 43. He is one of us. I know Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor's. I don't if this fact is widely known among evangelicals who are supporting Brownback."
Recovering Catholic? One of us? Apparently, Pastor Rude doesn't believe in soft bigotry. It's also clear that Pastor Rude (God loves irony, apparently) doesn't think much of Catholics, and believes that no evangelical should support a Catholic as long as there is a "real" evangelical in the race.
It will also be interesting to see how this plays out and if it gets any play with the right-wing blogs. They love to attack Democrats for being anti-religion and/or anti-Catholic. Now that it's clear that at least one person in the evangelical movement is anti-Catholic, I wonder whether the right will come down hard on their own base.
