"If Hillary ekes out close wins, stays alive, gains the nomination and the White House, will Rush hold the Bible at her Inauguration?" - Hugh Hewitt.

What shameless political games from the right. It's absolutely disgusting. I'm ashamed.

Amen.

Man!

What people don't seem to remember (and especially the Mensas in right-wing talk radio) is that the Clintons don't ever lose. You cannot give them an edge, at all. They haven't lost in decades.

I'm not saying Hillary won Texas and Ohio because of giggling Republicans posing as Democrats, but it certainly helped.

Brilliant, just brilliant . . .

Thanks for the link.

Just wait until I post my post I've been tweaking about idealism vs. pragmatism in politics....

It should be the defining paper on these subjects... :)

But just to give you a taste, almost every discussion people have been having over "who to vote for" involves the tension between idealism and pragmatism.

Is it morally wrong to use rules for a purpose other than their original intention?

Don't answer too quickly now.

Is a filibuster wrong?

Is it wrong when a political party redraws district boundary lines in their own favor?

Is it wrong when a politician uses a procedural rule to help his own bill or hurt someone elses?

Was it wrong for when Huckabees delegates switched to Romney to hurt McCain in the Virgina caucuses? (I don't remember the details on that one, someone help me out.)

It seems like some would say "yes" to all those questions. And that's OK.

But some good moral people would disagree saying that it's OK to use legal, and within the rules means to get to your desired end, especially if the end is good.

To put it a different way, is it OK to violate the spirit of the law, if you are following the letter of the law? And in politics, isn't it true that in a twisted way, using the rules to get your way is in keeping "with the spirit of politics"

Churches struggle with this in business meetings. Is it OK to "table a motion" for the purpose of killing it? Is it OK to "move to adjourn" so that the other side's motion isn't heard? Is it OK to "call for the question" (a motion to end debate) at a time when you think your side has enough votes to win?

I think good Christians will fall on all sides of this debate.

Some would say, "It's always OK to use the rules to win, as long as you follow the rules, and your side is doing what's right". (I think the conservative resurgence in the SBC is a good example of that kind of thinking. The conservatives studied the rules, and figured out how to use those rules to get control. It was political means for a theological end.)

Others would say, "It's never OK to misuse a rule. You should always follow the spirit, and it's morally wrong to use a rule that's intent is another purpose, to achieve your own ends."

And then there are those across the spectrum in the middle who would say "Well, sometimes it's OK, sometimes it's not. You can do it in some cases and not others. Or you can do it a little but don't take it too far." And obviously they would draw lines in different places for different reasons.

I saw the same sort of thing when the republicans in Texas redrew district lines in their own favor, and democrats LEFT the state so that the governor couldn't force them to have a vote in which they knew they would lose.

Both sides manipulated rules in that fight. It was totally the pot vs. the kettle.

Anyway, the point of the above comment is not to disagree with you, Bill. But rather to suggest that where someone falls on this question just might be under the area of "Christian Liberty".

I'm not sure. I'm still wrestling with all this. (I tend to lean your way, it's just that I don't think it's always so black and white. Would it be OK to use a legal technicality to get an innocent man to go free? Or would it be OK to use a procedural rule in the Senate so that less babies are killed because of Embryonic Stem Cell research?)

Good Christians disagree on this. Isn't warfare another example? Is it OK to kill to achieve a good end? Is it also OK to lie in a war? What moral lines shouldn't be crossed? What's justified and what isn't?

Another example of the idealist vs. pragmatic debate: Dietrich Bonhoeffer vs. Helmut Thielicke. Both were German Christian Preacher Theologians during WWII. Both opposed Hitler publicly. Both were approached and asked to participate in the German resistance. Thielicke declined. He chose non-violence, and resigned his post at the university, and went to a little town in Germany and pastored a little town of ordinary germans until the war was over. He quit opposing the nazis publicly. Bonhoeffer accepted the offer. He participated in the plot to kill Hitler and was executed. Was he a Christian martyr? A hero because he stood up to the Nazi's and his Christian faith? Or was he a moral hypocrite because he chose participate in a MURDER to rid the world of a greater evil?

I think good Christians can disagree, just as Bonhoeffer and Thielicke, both great men, came down on different sides of this question. The story of those two has always been an illustration of this exact point.

Here's how Wikipedia defines politics:

"Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. Most commonly it is generalized as "who gets what, when, why, and how." Although the term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.

Politics consists of "social relations involving authority or power"[1] and refers to the regulation of a political unit, [2] and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.[3]"

So is politics a necessary evil? Or is it evil at all? Or is it only evil if you do evil things? Or is it only evil if you conduct yourself badly? And is it morally acceptable to use the rules in your own favor?

Oh and to get back on topic, did republicans who crossed over for strategic reasons actually "sin"? Did they do a moral wrong?

Oh and by the way, for the record, I think Walker makes a really good point.

Wow - your comment really went far beyond the scope of what I was talking about! :-)

I look at it this way: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Lars nails it when he says "If they did it to us, I'd be angry about it."

On all the other questions you've asked: my brain's too small, Phil. But I wouldn't have been able, in good conscience, to go vote for someone I don't want to win just to fit some convoluted (and I think exceptionally foolish) political strategy.

That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, oops. I guess I opened a giant can o worms. Sorry. :) I've been pondering these issues for literally years now, and am still tweaking my thoughts on it.

Oh and your brain's not too small :)

I agree that Lars nails it.

I think there's one other factor here. On the Republican side, the race was over--Texas and Ohio were clearly going for McCain. Given that, is it fair to say that Republicans have no interest in who the Democratic nominee is? After all, if that person wins in November, they'll be President of all of us, not just of Democrats. Now, to cross over and vote donkey just to manipulate the process, I'll agree, is unseemly; but if you really believe HRC is the better of the two Democratic candidates for our country--which, as it happens, I do--and you don't believe there's any real point in voting in the Republican primary--which there certainly won't be going forward, and I can see why people would have thought that last night, that the GOP race was a foregone conclusion--then I don't see anything wrong with Republicans crossing over. We've certainly had enough Democrats voting in Republican primaries at points.

I think what Bill's talking about is Rush Limbaugh's call for Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton in hopes of screwing up the Democratic side and keep them fighting all the way to the convention.
I take no issue with crossing over. I crossed over too (to vote for the other candidate), and I don't see anything wrong with voting for who you think would be best fitted to run the country. But doing it in hopes of somehow sabotaging the other party is slimy and unethical.

Yes, I know that. The key word in my post was just. I suspect there are some, at least, who crossed over not simply to keep the bleeding going but because they really don't want to see Obama come out on top.

I suspect there are some, at least, who crossed over not simply to keep the bleeding going but because they really don't want to see Obama come out on top.

Or Clinton for that matter :)

Also true, but no one has been urged to vote for Obama for any other reason than to help him win the nomination.

The irony of all this, from the numbers I've seen this morning, is that what Republicans for Clinton essentially did was cancel out Republicans for Obama, and thus keep Republicans from handing Obama a win he wouldn't have earned with no Republicans voting. So who, really, is trying to manipulate the other party and tip it against the wishes of its own voters?