Can pastors endorse candidates?

Professor Stanley Fish provides some of the most well reasoned arguments on issues in the press. In this article, he discusses the issue of pastors exhorting their parishioners to vote for one or the other candidate, generally John McCain.

If you missed the issue, here's a brief summary. The current tax code currently disqualifies religious organizations from enjoying a tax exempt status if they "participate in or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office." Churches that endorse candidates risk losing their tax exempt status. Several pastors argue that this is a violation of the their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and religion. So, they have all given vituperative sermons in favor of one of the candidates, usually McCain, and challenged the IRS to take away their tax exempt status.

Prof. Fish argues very effectively that the underlying argument is actually a difference in world views that cannot be resolved through rational argument. You can read his article and see if you agree.

In my view he has overcomplicated it. Tax exempt status is essentially a way of the government giving a handout. It is unclear why religious organizations are exempt in the first place. But, given that they are, if religious organizations were now permitted to take political positions, wouldn't that in effect be a tax subsidy to one side of the political argument? While I am with the pastors that they should have the right to say what they like from the pulpit, I don't see anything in the constitution that tax payers to subsidize such speech. That's the real issue.

What was he thinking?

Amidst all this talk about "executive experience" in this time's Presidential elections, one question that the GOP had to answer was what ideas do they have to turn the US around? After all, dire predictions abound for the country, with people expecting America to be plunged into a third place behind India and China by middle of this century.

McCain's performance has been criticized as one of the worst ever by a Presidential candidate since Carter in 1980. To me though, the hallmark of the speech was a complete lack of direction. What does he stand for or intend to do?

For instance, one theme John McCain brought up was bi-partisanship after the GOP spent 3 days rolling out speaker after speaker to level character attacks against Obama, Biden, liberals and the DNC. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were singled out. So, this is bi-partisanship? Did the rest of the RNC not get the memo? Is McCain in charge, or did he just suffer amnesia?

He talked a lot about reforming Congress, but what reform? What specifically does he believe is wrong with Congress? The only thing he mentioned was that people came there with selfish motives, but then, how does he hope to fix that? Why, in his 25 years in that body, has he not proposed the changes before?

He distanced himself from Bush and the Congress, yet all he could offer was some old examples of rebellion. But, if he's different, what's different? What does he stand for the Bush did not? What does he hope to do that Bush did not? In fact, his only real explanation was that there are good ideas out there and we should trust him to find them. Obama offers change as a fruition of hope. McCain offers the hope that he can change. Is that all he has to offer?

He said he cared about the plight of the economically disaffected, but then went on to offer not a single substantive policy proposal for the future. The tax cuts he touts are an extension of Bush's tax cuts with a few tweaks. How is that different? What will he do in the next four years that Obama will not, or for that matter Bush would not have proposed?

He brought up energy independence, but if you actually scratch under the surface, he doesn't have a single idea apart from opening up more reserves for drilling and a token gimmick for a fuel efficient car. If America had enough reserves to be energy independent, they would have already. The fact is America doesn't have the reserves to meet all its needs. All McCain is offering is a bunch of distractions.

He hailed Obama for his achievement of being the first African American candidate, but did not use the term African American. Instead he cited "all men are created equal, ..." just before praising Obama's achievement. I may be paranoid, but the first thought that struck me was that is he trying to remind people that Obama is "uppity"?

He also used "civil rights issue" as a description of the school voucher program, which is a veiled reference that the GOP has been successfully using to suggest that the voucher program enables people not to attend schools dominated by people who they don't want to associate with, i.e. other races. This is straight out of the Rove playbook - prima facie irreproachable and compassionate, while achieving the completely indefensible effect of exploiting race.

He said he was the person who could bring peace, yet spoke more of war and fighting, rather than diplomacy and alliances. He mentioned he would protect Georgia from Russian dominance. How? What does he actually plan to do? I don't seriously believe anyone has an easy answer, but then he brought it up.

He promised to cut pork, but what pork will he cut? How does he expect to get legislation passed if he angers all the Senators and Congressmen? How can you believe he will do something no one in history has managed to do, including his hero Ronald Reagan? Also, the bulk of government expenditure isn't pork, it's interest and allocations to defense, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Unless he reforms those, he won't really affect the deficit. Does he have any plans to reform those?

Tax and spend liberals are a danger to a nation. Left uncontrolled, profligate spending could result in burgeoning debt, economic malaise, and a sense of entitlement among workers that reduces productivity and growth. However, if what McCain said was that the best the GOP has to offer, its singularly underwhelming and depressing. Obama has a plan. I don't like everything in it, but its better than no plan and 'I'll figure it out as I go'.

'Worst speech ever' may be an exaggeration. However, the speech illustrates that the GOP has a much more fundamental problem. They have, under Bush, implemented almost every one of their agenda items except disbanding social security, banning abortion and banning gay rights. They have no more ideas to offer. McCain may yet win. However, it might be better for the GOP that he does not. They need to come up with a revised recharged platform. Not this old fatigued set of ideas.

Ah ... now its sexism

This is a really good interview with Carly Fiorina.

Apparently, Sarah Palin wasn't picked because she is a woman. She was picked because she was more qualified than Barack Obama. And, its sexism to say otherwise, despite the fact that Carly herself knows nothing else about her. Also, it seems not to matter that Sarah Palin has diametrically opposite views as McCain on key issues such as global warming, because "people don't vote on single issues". Apparently, this is about diversity and coming together, except that many of these issues may be issues she will have to deal with.

Apparently, 20 months as Governor of Alaska (which, I am told has fewer people than a neighbourhood in Bethesda, MD), and 8 years as mayor of a town of 5000 (with 54 people under her) is enough executive experience to be President, more so than years in the US Senate. As Colbert points out in the clip below, by that token, Palin actually has more experience than McCain. Isn't the ticket the wrong way around?

Gyanifying on the palin' buzz

Let me catch my breath.

Astonished and flabberghasted that McCain has the temerity to select such an inexperienced person to be a heartbeat (or lack thereof) away from the Presidency, I have gone a bit overboard with tracking the revelations.

The revelation of how short and last minute the vetting process was probably has been the most astonishing. Apparently, she was only interviewed once on the the day before she was selected. I believe most companies spend more time interviewing most of their candidates than she spent to get the VP post, that too for a Presidential candidate who actuarially has a 1 in 3 chance of dying in the next 8 years leaving her in charge. This of course says little about Sarah Palin and volumes about McCain.

The incredulity about the choice is apparently shared by many senior Republican commentators too, except that they are murmering it in private. There are even bookies offering 8-1 odds that she will be asked to step aside.

Notwithstanding the hoopla though, I think the predictions of her demise may be premature.

I watched her in a number of speeches, and she is actually quite a good speaker, so the speech tonight may surprise people. She has only to memorize it, not to actually develop the content. She is also a pretty effective debator, expecially when the responses are required in short soundbites on tried and tested issues, which the campaign should provide her with the ammunation for.

Her Achilles' heel is likely to be that she has so much to familiarize herself with, that there are probably some less popular issues that she may need to deprioritize learning about. So, I'd say, if there is an embarrassing stumble, then it will be at a town hall somewhere or when being grilled by some reporters, where an unexpected question yields an unexpected answer.

I could be mistaken, but my guess is that given the low expectations of her, she may surprise people to a point where there will be a rise, before the fall. If she's very lucky, the fall may come too late to have any influence on the election.