Rick Perry’s rightward shuffle on abortion was noted in yesterday’s news, and now today we have this:
[N]ew, more pointed religious references reflect how campaigns are scrambling for support among evangelicals who are still divided over whom to support as the caucuses near.
“At this point in the game, the candidates in the G.O.P. primary don’t have the time or the money for subtlety,” said Mark McKinnon, a Republican media strategist. “They will light a fire and stand by a burning bush in order to send a signal to evangelicals, ‘I’m one of you, vote for me.’ ”
….what is different this year, media strategists and analysts said, is the extent to which the candidates are distributing such unambiguously religious messages so widely.
Your blogger for today lives in Iowa – in Sioux City, in fact, site of the most recent and final GOP debate prior to caucusing – where electoral gamesmanship is pervasive, overt, and, it’s fair to say, already very ugly. But you have to wonder how the appropriation of such an in-your-face hard line on religion will play outside the Midwest. Then again, you also might wonder for how many of the present slate of candidates it will even matter.