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Highlighting the fact that the religious right and Bush are tightly aligned:
A commentator on the radio this morning suggested that Bush's strategy is to shore up the evangelical Christian vote with the belief that those folks alone would be enough to win him the election. This is more or less consistent with other things I've heard about Bush basically preaching to the choir, if you'll pardon the pun, at all of his campaign stops not just to create the illusion of rabid support from a television perspective, but also to energize his base to turn out to vote to build his numbers that way rather than targeting swing voters, as conventional wisdom would suggest.
It will be interesting to see how this works. I'm banking that it won't -- I just don't think the decision to vote or not to vote is changed in that way, and the people that are attending those rallies and are politically involved are going to vote anyway...
Pastors Issue Directive in Response to Reelection Tactic
By Alan Cooperman
Wednesday, August 18, 2004; Page A04
Ten teachers of Christian ethics at leading seminaries and universities have written a letter to President Bush criticizing his campaign's outreach to churches, particularly its effort to gather church membership directories.
The Aug. 12 letter asked Bush to "repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign, which violated a fundamental principle of our democracy." It also urged both presidential candidates to "respect the integrity of all houses of worship."
...
"When certain church leaders acceded to the request of the Bush/Cheney campaign to hand over the names and addresses of their congregants, they crossed a line," the letter said. "It is proper for church leaders to address social issues, but it is improper, and even illegal, for them to get their churches to endorse candidates or align their churches with a specific political party."
...
The campaign has come under growing criticism since The Washington Post reported July 1 on an instruction sheet for Bush's religious "coalition coordinators." It listed 22 duties, beginning with: "Send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters" and "Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush."
The ethicists' letter said that "Christians, individually, should prayerfully seek God's direction when voting, but when any church leaders contend that they speak for God and have the right to tell congregants how to vote, such leaders have assumed prerogatives to which they have no right."
By Alan Cooperman
Wednesday, August 18, 2004; Page A04
Ten teachers of Christian ethics at leading seminaries and universities have written a letter to President Bush criticizing his campaign's outreach to churches, particularly its effort to gather church membership directories.
The Aug. 12 letter asked Bush to "repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign, which violated a fundamental principle of our democracy." It also urged both presidential candidates to "respect the integrity of all houses of worship."
...
"When certain church leaders acceded to the request of the Bush/Cheney campaign to hand over the names and addresses of their congregants, they crossed a line," the letter said. "It is proper for church leaders to address social issues, but it is improper, and even illegal, for them to get their churches to endorse candidates or align their churches with a specific political party."
...
The campaign has come under growing criticism since The Washington Post reported July 1 on an instruction sheet for Bush's religious "coalition coordinators." It listed 22 duties, beginning with: "Send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters" and "Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush."
The ethicists' letter said that "Christians, individually, should prayerfully seek God's direction when voting, but when any church leaders contend that they speak for God and have the right to tell congregants how to vote, such leaders have assumed prerogatives to which they have no right."
It will be interesting to see how this works. I'm banking that it won't -- I just don't think the decision to vote or not to vote is changed in that way, and the people that are attending those rallies and are politically involved are going to vote anyway...
That's some crazy shit.
At least we had some damnable fun of our own sorts in those little prisons. 
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