Jiving the Jesus voters

I just now found an interesting book on sale at the 99 Cent Store: How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, by Allen Raymond, an ultra-captious lower-level Rovian who went to jail as a result of the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal. The GOP threw him under the proverbial bus; meanwhile, his boss James Tobin walked. (The story is here.)

The book is a grimly fun read. According to Raymond, all of your worst fears about GOP election scamming are true, true, all too horribly true. Yet I don't see how Dems can take much partisan pleasure in these revelations, since the Obama campaign wallowed in the same sort of filth throughout 2008 -- a fact that many progs are only now beginning to comprehend.

Short and funny as Raymond's expose is, the teabaggers and Jesus voters won't read this book. (Or any other -- not even the Bible, which they possess but do not peruse.) But I wish they'd at least read the following short paragraph about the book, offered by an Amazon reviewer:

Probably the biggest reason that GOP insiders want you not to read this book is that it showcases the in-crowd's complete contempt for their supporters -- "the Jesus-loves-guns crowd" -- "the knuckle-draggers, the gunnies, and the committed ideologue nuts." "The mouth-breathers who who decide GOP primaries might allow people to steal their money and send their children to impossible wars but they'll cut no such slack for baby-killers."

The book hit Barnes & Noble a little over a year ago -- and now it's in the 99 Cent Store, which means that many copies probably were (or will be) pulped. Neat trick. Publishing, like campaigning, is a racket.

Earlier, the Abramoff/Ralph Reed scandal revealed the right's behind-the-scenes contempt for the evangelicals. Yet the fundies continue to be played for fools.

For further evidence, read this piece on the resurgent Promise Keeper movement, which was and is predicated on the dubious proposition that Jesus likes to see huge stadiums filled with testosterone. The movement reached its peak in the 1990s, then withered:

The budget dropped from a peak of $117 million in 1997 to about $34 million in 2001. Gone were the stadium rallies, replaced by much smaller arena events.

Suddenly, the coffers are full again -- and so are those Nuremberg-style rallies. So where did the money come from? You may be able to find a clue or two in the following:

The afternoon’s “Did You Know?” PowerPoint slideshow proclaimed the Jewish people as “the fathers of the faith,” firmly embraced the Jewish roots of Christianity, and soundly rejected Christian supercessionism. God had not abandoned his covenant with Abraham, the voiceover declared, and the Jews are still God’s chosen people.

The modern-day Jews-for-Jesus contingent plays a massive role at these rallies, emphasizing the usual eschatological tripe about Israel's role in the "Last Days."

PK’s reinvention, even if it falls flat, tells us a lot about the reach of Christian Zionism, philo-Semitism, and Messianic Judaism within some quarters of evangelical America. Some of the signs—all abundantly in evidence at Folsom Field—might appear quaint, even sweet in a multi-culti kind of way: Jewish melodies in contemporary Christian music, Israeli folk dancing, the sprinkling of Hebrew words in sermons and media productions (“Shalom!”, “Boker tov!”, “Behold the kavod of the Lord!”)

Yet Christian Zionism, in many of its forms, carries not only significant theological implications but political ones as well, and that is worthy of attention; especially at a time when the prophecy clocks tick louder and louder to those with ears to hear. One indication of the apocalyptic energies in the PK event was the militant language of spiritual warfare that characterized the promotional blitz leading up to the PK 2.0 launch. Much of Christian Zionism, including McCartney’s Road to Jerusalem, reflects the preoccupations of many politically conservative evangelicals in the post-9/11 period; in particular, the hope that a new Judeo-Christian alliance might be the bulwark that saves the West against the threat of “radical Islam.”

Again I ask: If the PKs are flush again, where's the money coming from? Who has a motive to fund this sort of movement?

It's a puzzle. A riddle. Behold, I show you a mystery.

He that hath an ear, let him hear...