Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Some take the surge by GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as a convincing sign that the evangelicals are back. They tipped the scales and put George W. Bush back in the White House in 2004 and conservatives are giddy at the thought that they could have a decisive impact on the 2012 election; decisive, that is, for the GOP. The joy is premature. Santorum has not won a major primary in a major primary state. The Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri caucuses where arguably conservative evangelicals did help put him back on the presidential map were too narrow, limited and skewed in terms of vote numbers to be any kind of accurate gauge of the force evangelicals can or will bring to boost a GOP presidential candidate.

The starting point for getting a feel for how the evangelical vote will play out in 2012, and for whom, is to determine just who is an evangelical, and more importantly, how many there are of them. Countless polls and surveys have come up with wildly conflicting and confusing characterizations of whom and what is an evangelical. Is the evangelical designation based on beliefs, pronouncements, personal declarations of faith, denominations, or, of most interest to politicians, a willingness to vote for a candidate based on their beliefs and values?

In 2004, that meant that an evangelical was a devout churchgoer, a passionate defender of the traditional family, vehemently opposed to abortion, gay rights, especially gay marriage, sex education, and was a war hawk. Bush strategist Karl Rove unabashedly stoked the culture and social value wars to inflame and ultimately stampede conservative evangelicals to the polls. How many were there? The numbers are conflicting, and amounts to little more than guesswork. The estimates ranged from as little as 7 percent of the adult population to nearly 50 percent.

Whatever the actual number of conservative evangelicals, they did make a difference in 2004. But 2008 was a far different story. A danger sign for the GOP that evangelicals would not be a decisive factor in tipping the 2008 election came when the Reverend Rick Warren had to fight to get more than a few members of his mega Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, to approve letting then presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama grace the dais at his church. There was some grumbling from the flock, But Warren persisted, and the recalcitrant evangelicals came around; at least, they didn’t publicly complain. Obama in great part helped the sell. He made it plain that he’d pull out more stops than any other Democratic presidential candidate in recent times to court the evangelicals. His oft professed testament of faith and tout of traditional religious values got a hearing from some evangelicals. Whether they actually pulled the lever for him or not was less important than the fact that he was able to neutralize and diffuse their past knee jerk opposition to his candidacy. Obama had simply picked up the political signs about the disunity among evangelicals from the 2006 mid-term elections. And that many young evangelicals were more worried about the economy, the war, poverty, HIV/AIDS and global warming than the wedge issues of abortion and gay marriage.

Then one-third of white evangelicals broke ranks and voted for Democrats. This didn’t mean that they had completely made peace with the Democrats. But it was a major departure from the past, and sent a shudder through the GOP.

The other problem was GOP presidential candidate John McCain. He was not Bush. He did not have ballot measures in several key states banning gay marriage to energize conservative evangelicals that Bush had in 2004. He made no overt or subtle appeals to evangelicals to turn the 2008 election into a referendum on America’s moral values. The inept, half-baked, clumsy effort of VP candidate Sarah Palin registered barely a pulse beat among evangelicals, and it was quickly dampened by McCain.

This doesn’t mean that evangelicals, no matter what designation, can’t flex their political muscle again. In a survey by the Detroit News in 2005 following Bush’s reelection the question was asked whether churches should have more influence in politics. Nearly sixty percent agreed. The majority of them were Republican leaning, and there is always the prospect that a cultural war issue could unexpectedly explode during the campaign. A hint of that came with the flap over Obama’s initial ruling on contraceptives. He made a quick and dept pirouette on it when he saw the potential danger a morals value issue could pose for his reelection.

The estimated sixty to eighty million Christian evangelicals are arguably too big, too important, and too politically strategic to ignore. Gingrich momentarily in the South Carolina primary and Santorum know their potential. But potential is one thing, showing up at the polls in big enough numbers to make a major difference in 2012 is another thing. There’s as yet no evidence that 2012 will be even a remote rerun of 2004 for the GOP.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.

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Brian Normoyle

Buzzfeed reported Tuesday that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum claimed in a 2008 interview for the Oxford Center for Religious Life that there is no such thing as a liberal Christian. He was and is wrong.

Every election cycle, we see more of this callow silliness whereby the Christian right and conservative politicians contend in one way or another that Republicans may claim moral superiority as the party of Jesus — (R-Nazareth), apparently — while “liberals” are godless and dangerous.

But while many political opportunists cynically pander to an evangelical base by half-heartedly nodding to socially divisive issues they only cursorily believe, I don’t doubt the sincerity of Santorum’s beliefs or the strength of his convictions. Of course, that’s precisely why he’s not only out of touch with the views of a majority of mainstream Americans, but with many fellow Christians and the principle teachings of Christ himself.

Even if Santorum could make a credible case that American civil law must “comport with God’s law” (he can’t) he doesn’t get to have it both ways. The Bible is replete with passages condoning polygamy, slavery, the subjugation of women and all sorts of outdated or unsavory tenets Santorum and conservatives like him so selectively disregard. But the issue isn’t just that evangelicals cherry-pick scriptural precepts they like and turn a blind eye to those they don’t — or that the Constitution explicitly proscribes the establishment of a religion (any religion) — it’s that Republican Jesus doesn’t square with the version of the man depicted in the Bible.

Was Christ a war-friendly, pro-death penalty, pro-assault rifle, pro-corporatist, anti-environmentalist who walked among the dinosaurs? Or he was he the compassionate, charitable man who saw love and acceptance of others, tolerance, and generosity towards the poor as the principle paths towards an enlightened, God-like life?

To be clear, I don’t believe Jesus follows or cares about American politics any more than he’s invested in who wins the Super Bowl or an unprovoked war. But if we must perennially engage in this futile, neanderthal exercise of trying to divine a deity’s personal positions on a nation half a world and two millennia removed from where and when he lived, then we can’t ignore the countless references in his Gospel to social justice, welfare, and tolerance while inventing words he absolutely didn’t say about gays and abortion, despite their prevalence in his time.

And whether championing the right to affordable health care, nondiscrimination, and social justice or fighting to protect basic welfare, living wages, and the earth we tread and air we breath — liberals and their standard-bearers have traditionally favored policies distinctly more geared towards the very issues about which Christ spoke and for which he was marginalized and condemned: the poor, the sick and those suffering from injustices of unfair systems.

I’m not a Christian anymore. But given Santorum’s selective use of the Bible and his clear misunderstanding of the overall message of Christ, neither is he. At least — to use Rev. Franklin Graham’s evasive innuendo about Obama’s faith — I can’t “categorically say” he is. Perhaps, like his own statement on Obama’s faith, Santorum just subscribes to “a phony ‘theology’… based [not] on the Bible… [but] a different theology.” Either way, it has no place in American civil law and certainly no place in a serious presidential political discussion.

Besides, Santorum was wrong. There is such a thing as a liberal Christian. His name was Jesus.

Follow Brian Normoyle on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BrianNormoyle

David Brock

Roger Ailes, granted unprecedented freedom by Rupert Murdoch and utilizing his unique production talent, has built Fox News into cable news’s Goliath, dominating the ratings with an audience that is both large and dedicated to the network’s brand. Fox is loved by the conservative base and feared by politicians of both parties.

Ailes could have used his production genius to build a constructive force. Instead, he has built one that has fundamentally damaged our political and media landscape, leaving a legacy of cynicism and destruction. Joe McGinniss, the author of several books, including the classic The Selling of the President and The Rogue, a 2011 book on Sarah Palin, has been a friend of Ailes’s for forty-four years, yet still believes that “from Richard Nixon to Rupert Murdoch, I think everyone he’s ever worked for has harmed this country in some way. I also think Fox News is an excrescence.”

At Fox, Ailes has ushered in the era of post-truth politics. The facts no longer matter, only what is politically expedient, sensationalistic, and designed to confirm the preexisting opinions of a large audience. It’s a world where a news organization encourages people to believe that Barack Obama attended a madrassa, even though he did not; and encourages its viewers to believe the Earth is not warming, in spite of the fact that virtually every scientific authority says it is. It is an organization that consciously reports that the Democrats’ health care bill contains death panels, despite the fact that it does not.

In each of these cases, Fox broadcasted and laundered these lies and others like them until they became gospel for a segment of the population. Once, this role was reserved for talk radio or small-circulation ideological publications. Now the highest-rated cable news network in America broadcasts them.

There is simply nothing comparable on the left. No mainstream left-of-center media organization–however broadly you define that category–departs so willingly and extensively from journalism’s fundamental mission to report facts as fairly and objectively as possible. No outright lie is accepted as widely on the left as distortions like the “death panels” have been on the right.

Beyond the lies, Roger Ailes has been at the forefront of a political culture that seeks to divide our country. On the Nixon and Bush campaigns, he worked to fragment America along racial lines. Now at Fox, he has continued that effort, in addition to dividing us by party and ideology. Balkanizing our nation makes it practically impossible for our leaders to work together. There could be no compromise on the health care bill because Republicans feared an attack from Fox. There can be no working together to solve the climate crisis because Fox has convinced its audience that global warming does not exist. Republicans felt compelled to push our nation to the edge of default because they feared the reaction of their Fox News-watching base.

Richard (RJ) Eskow

Anybody who doesn’t believe that energy speculators can change election results might want to ask Gray Davis, the former Governor of California who was removed in a recall drive partly prompted by voter frustration over California’s ongoing energy crisis. Only afterwards did we learn that the crisis was caused by speculators who backed his opponents’ deregulatory agenda — and benefited from it.

Coincidence? We report, you decide.

And anyone who doesn’t believe that gas prices affect election results might want to ask former President Jimmy Carter. If the 1980 election hadn’t turned out the way it did we might be living in a very different world.

Today gas prices continue to rise, despite the fact that demand for oil is lower than it’s been in the last fifteen years. Are speculators affecting our fate again? That’s the subject of heated technical debate, although I find the evidence very compelling. But here’s something to consider: The prime suspects for oil speculation — Goldman Sachs, the Koch Brothers, etc. — are the people who are fighting tooth and nail to make sure government never has the power to investigate their actions.

Here’s the California scenario in a nutshell: Deregulation unleashes the dogs of speculation on energy markets, driving up prices and creating scarcity. A moderate Democrat loses office as a result, turning the reins of power over to a Republican who calls for … more deregulation.

Could it happen again?

Speculation Speculation

People keep debating the question, just as they did in 2008: Are speculators affecting oil prices? Skeptics point to the crisis in Iran and recent signs of increased demand as real-world factors that could affect prices. But end-user demand remains low.

I find the pro-speculation arguments compelling. But the professional approach to any financial question requires us to “put the ‘anal’ in ‘analyst,’” so the most professional thing to say is: We don’t know for sure. And we can’t know for sure until the government gets the authority and the resources to investigate fully. (More about that in a minute.)

Here’s what we do know: Oil prices rose while demand fell. Futures and other financial instruments have allowed all sorts of people to bet on the oil market, along with other commodities markets, for more than twenty years. And whenever demand and prices don’t track together, something is happening that we can’t see.

If prices are rising based on expectation that things will get better in the future, that suggests speculators are at work. And if they fall whenever there’s a sign of an upcoming economic storm, that also suggests that prices are being driven by intermediaries who are gambling on the future rather than suppliers responding to demand.

Those intermediaries happen to be the same people who keep lobbying to make sure we don’t have the ability to find out what’s happening or the authority to stop it.

The Skeptics

Some of the people who reject the idea that speculators are at work are also defending a separate but related idea: That oil is a limited commodity and we’re overly dependent on it. That’s true, and some people are afraid that the “speculator” argument will be seen as a blank check to continue our over-reliance on oil.

But two things can be true at the same time: Speculation may be affecting the price of a commodity that will nevertheless continue to grow in direct and indirect cost, meaning that we should therefore begin reducing our dependence on it.

The Case

Why is the case for oil speculation prices so compelling? Not only is there that mysterious divergence between demand and price, but there are also convincing analyses like the one Michael Masters did which linked the last price surge to $60 billion in speculator purchases.

Twenty years ago, speculators purchased roughly 30 percent of the world’s future oil deliveries. As of 2011 that number has risen to 70 percent. They wouldn’t be doing it if there weren’t money to be made. It’s hard to believe that they would stake trillions of dollars merely on the wisdom of their educated guesses — especially if they had the opportunity to manipulate the results instead.

You can count Goldman Sachs among the believers. Last year it issued a warning that speculation was getting out of hand and driving prices too high. Since Goldman was present at the creation of the speculation market, it has a lot of credibility on the topic. Nobody knows more about Frankenstein’s monster than Dr. Frankenstein himself.

Speculation/Manipulation

Speculation is one possible cause of rising prices. Another is outright price manipulation, as took place in California.

If we have no clear proof that speculators are driving prices, that means we also lack proof of outright manipulation.

How do we get proof? There are three possible scenarios: One is that speculators are innocent of any wrongdoing, and aren’t even hurting the economy. Another is that they’re acting legally, but destructively, which may spur calls for new legislation. And the third is that some of them are engaged in criminal behavior.

The way to find out is through government investigation, and by strengthening the regulatory power of the appropriate agencies. But look who’s blocking those actions.

Cui Bono?

As the old prosecutors used to say, Cui Bono? Who benefits? The people who would have both the motive and the opportunity to manipulate markets are the same people who are blocking real investigations.

Wall Street firms have been at the forefront of blocking even the mild financial reforms of Dodd/Frank — reforms which include increased limits on their ability to gamble in the commodities market.

Energy distributors like the infamous Koch Brothers also have both motive and opportunity. The Koch Brothers own oil suppliers and distributors, and introduced the first oil-indexed Wall Street swap way back in 1986. As suppliers, they can influence price. As speculators, they can make a fortune.

Wall Street firms and energy distributors also happen to be pouring enormous sums of money into Washington to make sure they’re never subjected to meaningful regulatory oversight. They’re in bed with a number of prominent politicians, especially in the GOP. (Ten years ago they were literally “in bed” with one another, since Sen. Phil Gramm’s wife was on Enron’s board even as Gramm pushed the deregulation of oil speculation.)

Who else benefits from rising oil prices? Republican politicians, who have been using them all week to attack the President and Democrats in general.

Coincidence? We report, you decide. To be clear, we’re not suggesting that anybody’s sinking tens of billions of dollars into oil purchases just to decide this year’s election. There are probably cheaper ways to purchase democracy. But if it is all coincidence, it’s all working out pretty nicely for somebody.

A Populist Issue

As we said in the beginning, we can’t know for sure what’s behind these oil prices. But what we can know is that we don’t know — and that our government should have the resources to track these markets and intervene when they’re being misused.

Some people believe the oil price boom may be ending, and that’s possible. But with so much that’s hidden from view, we can’t know. If they continue to rise that could change the course of the upcoming election and lead the President to defeat.

Fortunately there are things he can be doing now that would greatly benefit the country, and parenthetically would also help his reelection efforts. Last year he announced an investigation into possible oil speculation, but it was underfunded and seems to have gone nowhere. The President should immediately ramp up that effort and give it real resources.

Secondly, the President should mount a strong defense for financial regulation and make the case for strong oversight of commodities trading. He can point to rising oil prices, should they occur, and tell the public that his opponents won’t give him the resources he needs to handle the problem.

Third, he can point to GOP-backed moves like the amendment passed in Congress last week which would force U.S. taxpayers to keep guaranteeing big banks’ speculation in oil and other markets as a sign of what this battle is really about: economic security for the many vs. government-guaranteed greed and speculation for the few.

To be sure, this latest move had “bipartisan” support, as so much dangerous deregulation has in the past. (This picture serves as a harsh reminder of Clinton-era coziness with Wall Street.) But that’s exactly the kind of bipartisanship the President should reject: the bipartisanship of corporate politics.

That’s a route the President would be well-advised to take. Should he? Yes. Will he? We don’t know — and we’re not in the business of speculating.

We discussed oil prices last week with Thom Hartmann in his television show, The Big Picture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lsFvqt18A2Q