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Sarah Posner

Sarah Posner's coverage of religion and politics has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Week, and many others.

 

Recent Articles

A MCCAIN-HUCKABEE TICKET?

Sarah PosnerJan 07, 2008
Picking up on Tom 's post below, since Huckabee won in Iowa and McCain may well prevail in New Hampshire, I've been wondering whether the Republicans will end up with a McCain-Huckabee ticket. In a way, it seems like a clever move: Huckabee looks like the only candidate who can consolidate the religious part of the base, whose numbers the GOP would need to have any shot at prevailing in November. His obvious foreign policy ignorance makes him a wide-open target at the top of the ticket, but as a running mate to McCain that would appear less worrisome, and he would bring along religious conservatives reluctant about McCain. A war hero and a pastor might just be the best combo the GOP can get out its fractured field. Think about the consequences, though, of a McCain-Huckabee presidency. McCain would focus on foreign policy and national security (i.e., keeping us in Iraq for 100 years) and Huckabee would be busy turning biblical conservatives into political appointees. There's a peril...

CHRISTIAN RIGHT GRASSROOTS GIVE DOBSON THE FINGER.

Sarah PosnerJan 04, 2008
Although you could pinpoint the turning point of Mike Huckabee 's candidacy at the 2007 Values Voters Summit in October, where he won the straw poll, I see it a bit earlier, back in the summer, when he was endorsed by evangelical publisher Stephen Strang and New Man magazine. There's a new crew of evangelical vote mobilizers, and their names aren't Dobson or Robertson. Sixty percent of last night's Republican caucus-goers were evangelical, and 80% of Huckabee's supporters described themselves as evangelical. And he pulled it off without some of the biggest public faces of the Christian right. At the Values Voters Summit, despite wide support by the rank and file, the summit's organizers -- notably Focus on the Family's James Dobson , Family Research Council's Tony Perkins , American Values' Gary Bauer , and High Impact Leadership Coalition's Harry Jackson -- resisted getting behind Huckabee. Of the organizers of the Values Voters Summit -- billed as the most important political...

IS NEWT BACKING HUCKABEE?

Sarah PosnerJan 03, 2008
Mike Huckabee 's campaign website has a new video up, fresh from the campaign bus. In it, some usual suspects make pitches to potential caucus-goers: Chuck Norris , former South Carolina governor David Beasley , Huckabee's wife Janet (along with her three dogs), and Ken Eldred , author of the book God at Work (which apparently shows how "biblical values" spell successful capitalism -- who says the old GOP alliances are dead?). Also on board? Rick Tyler , Newt Gingrich 's national spokesman. Here's the video: --Sarah Posner

WHAT THE HUCKABOOM SAYS ABOUT THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT, WIN OR LOSE TONIGHT.

Sarah PosnerJan 03, 2008
I'm not in the habit of making predictions -- I've spent too much time listening to self-styled biblical prophesiers over the past couple of years -- but a few observations about Mike Huckabee , whether he pulls out a win in Iowa tonight or not, are in order. Although the religious right has been unable to coalesce around a candidate, and the tried and true GOP alliances look like they're crumbling, Huckabee's meteoric rise since the August straw poll shows that there is a still a formidable fundamentalist political machine that can rally money and ground troops around a candidate. What has changed is the face of that political machine: Pat Robertson 's Christian Coalition has fallen apart, and Robertson himself has lost personal appeal with the rank and file; Jerry Falwell is gone; and James Dobson has mystified followers by not embracing the only candidate who obviously meets his retrograde litmus tests. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council similarly has distanced himself...

The FundamentaList (No. 15)

Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney jockey for the support of the Christian base.

Sarah PosnerJan 02, 2008
1. The Meaning of Huckmas The last Sunday before the caucuses, Mike Huckabee backed off from giving a scheduled sermon at an Iowa church, saying he wanted to worship instead of speak. But on the previous Sunday, just two days before Christmas, in front of a packed crowd at John Hagee's 5,000-seat Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, Huckabee equated real believers in Christ with the lowly shepherds who heralded the arrival of the newborn king, and selfish nonbelievers with Herod, King of Judea, who felt so threatened by Jesus' arrival that he ordered all baby boys to be murdered. Believers, he maintained, are unselfish and want to serve Jesus; the nonbelievers, like Herod, want power and money all to themselves and refuse to worship the son of God. Although Huckabee has insisted that he didn't replace the Arkansas capitol dome with a steeple and that his comments in religious settings shouldn't be misconstrued as theocratic, it was hard for this Jew in the pew (in the church that...

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