McCain Courts Religious Right

An interesting press release landed in my in-box today. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), widely rumored to be a 2008 Presidential candidate, is delivering the commencement speech at Jerry Fallwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA on 13 May.

As the Seattle PI points out: "When McCain himself once cited 'pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and agents of intolerance,' he mentioned Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell."

Falwell is well known for his, umm, excessive rhetoric. For example, he apologized for this one, immediately post-9-11:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

In 2004, he claimed that evangelical Christians control the Republican Party. McCain's capitulation gives weight to the claim. The Christian Science Monitor calls him the "early front-runner for the GOP nomination" and notes that he is "courting social conservatives," a group that endorsed Bush over McCain in 2000.

A Christian Broadcast Network
But that wasn't all the news in the release. The rest: the speech is being broadcast, live, via Sky Angel, "the world’s only Christian-owned and -operated direct-to-home multi-channel television service." On Friday, the network will also broadcast "Liberty University's baccalaureate service featuring speaker Gary Bauer, president of American Values."

From the Sky Angel website:

In 1980, God placed high-power direct broadcast satellites (DBS) on the heart of Robert Johnson as a way to establish a cost-effective, unrestricted, multi-channel electronic media outlet to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the masses. Johnson felt the Lord was impressing upon him that high-power DBS would be the last opportunity the Christian Church would have to control the use of a telecommunications system capable of reaching virtually every home, church and other location in America and eventually across the globe.

Only time will tell if this is a strategic move (pander to the right during the primaries) that will work ... or backfire come general election time.

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