Coven of Evangelicals Back Santorum for GOP Nominee

Ever since evangelical Christians became engaged in the Republican Party, the GOP has slide further and further from rationality and the open embrace of ignorance and bigotry have increasingly become the norm. One only need look at the current crop of would be GOP presidential nominees to see proof of the phenomenon. The more sane and rational one is, the greater the opposition from the Kool-Aid drinking Bible beating faction of the GOP. The irony, of course, is that as the evangelicals have pushed the GOP further to the ultra-far right, the more likely it is that they are improving Barack Obama's re-election chances. Now, a group that included hate group leaders Tony Perkins and Don Wildmon, and other Christofascists like James Dobson has met in Texas and is seeking to focus evangelical support behind Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum. Personally, I love it! Were Santorum ever to actually get the GOP nomination, I suspect Obama would win by a crushing landslide as every even remotely sane voter ran screaming from Santorum and the GOP. Here are some highlights from the New York Times (which sadly but true to form does not identify Perkins and Wildmon as the leaders of registered hate groups):

BRENHAM, Tex. — Evangelical leaders pursued a last-ditch effort on Saturday to exert influence in the Republican presidential primary race, voting to support the candidacy of Rick Santorum in hopes of undercutting Mitt Romney’s march to the nomination.

A week before the South Carolina primary, a group of more than 100 influential Christian conservatives gathered at a ranch here and voted overwhelmingly to rally behind Mr. Santorum. An organizer described the vote as an “unexpected supermajority,” a decision that was intended to help winnow the Republican field and consolidate the opposition to Mr. Romney.

The extent to which those attending the meeting will be able to mobilize their followers behind Mr. Santorum remains unclear. The group’s vote is not binding on participants and the leaders did not directly ask Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Perry to drop out of the race. “There is a hope and an expectation that this will have an impact on South Carolina,” Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council and a spokesman for the group, said in a telephone news conference after the private meeting concluded.

[O]rganizers of the Texas meeting said they expected to see new endorsements and fund-raising efforts for Mr. Santorum before Republicans in South Carolina vote on Saturday, followed by the Florida primary on Jan 31. Their hope is that if evangelicals unite around one candidate, they can head off the nomination of Mr. Romney, whom they regard as too moderate.

The meeting in Texas began Friday afternoon at the ranch of Paul and Nancy Pressler, who are longtime patrons of conservative causes. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, Donald E. Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association, and Mr. Perkins were among the organizers. . . . . Perkins said, participants were as concerned about repealing Mr. Obama’s health care law and fighting the national debt as they were about abortion and same-sex marriage.

The shared goal, many participants said, was to see if it would be possible to unite conservative Christians around a single alternative to Mr. Romney and avoid repeating the experience of 2008, when their disarray helped Senator John McCain, whom they considered a moderate, to take the nomination.

One can only image the amount of seething hatred of others and pathological lying that existed in that gathering of nasty, truth and veracity challenged "leaders." It must have resembled a gathering of the top leaders of the KKK - especially with Tony Perkins acting as spokesman.