Cafferty Files: Wazzup with Family Values in '08?
By John Amato Tuesday Dec 18, 2007 3:00pm
James Dobson won't be happy about this story. USA TODAY says that in this election cycle family values the religious right doesn't have the umph...it once did. I guess bashing gays is out for 2008. Hey, James---where's Karl Rove when you need him?
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Cafferty: It looks like family values aren't the campaign issue they used to be. "USA Today" reports that in this election cycle, so-called "family values" are lower on the agenda. Of course, Republicans have made family values a staple of their political campaigns for three decades now.
Randall writes: "People have finally figured out that family values was just a red herring, a Republican bumper sticker slogan which was used to keep people from paying attention to the real issues, i.e. the Iraq war, the skyrocketing deficit, the recession we're in, a lack of single-pay health insurance for everyone, and a government that has never worked for the people, but only for the military industrial complex and for big business."
(h/t Heather)
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I think it's the other way around. I think that with so many man-on-boy sex scandals and the abysmal marital records of cretins like Giuliani and Gingrich et al. that the Republicans are working to minimize the importance of their once-central campaign platform.
Hypocrisy, it's not just for breakfast anymore...
I find that my family's values differ from some other people's "family values". My family values charity more than chastity, and responsibility more than knee-jerk responses to other viewpoints than our own.
where’s Karl Rove?
lurking in the shadows for the next wave of the shock doctrine.
You get the family values package at the new movie Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
The family value du jour :Burn the evidence.
Albatross @ 1:
I think you may well have a very good point. There is so much scandal out there now and it would all be rehashed if they make a big deal of this now. I think that's why we are hearing so much about abortion, all the other "values" have been trashed and in the public eye.
Albatross @ 1:
Exactly so - the repugs aren't bring up "family values" at every opportunity like they used to.
.....and a government that has never worked for the people, but only for the military industrial complex and for big business.”
how many times has that term "military industrial complex" been used by the main contributors of this blog....john, nicole, mike and howie???
how many?
i am a daily reader, and to me that entity, is our worst enemy.
hillary and obama are members .
edwards and paul are the ONLY candidates that aren't.
say it!
Times are getting hard - the economy is on the brink of god-only-knows what kind of crash, and many of the Kool-aid drunk are waking to the reality that the Heroes they have supported have left them raped, robbed, and disenfranchised.
As a result of this awakening, family values are finding their proper place in the national discourse: in the home.
God help Bush when the average family starts missing meals.
I think Cafferty has seen the light!
Im surprised they have yet to use the war on terror slogans on the gay community..
"They'll follow us home!"
Marcus Aurelius @ 9:
boosh knows the importance of putting food on your family.
Question Blog @ 8:
I believe that one of O'bama's campaign planks is not having taken any money from them, or Big Oil
V V
If my memory serves me well, I remember the slogan "family values" as a code word for bigotry used during the time of another famous Amurkin who went by the initials GW. Yes, I'm talking about George Wallace. After he had his "conversion" on racial issues, the racists in the south would say things like, "Why, you wouldn't want your daughter to marry someone who didn't share your family values, now, would you?" As opposed to "Why, you wouldn't want your daughter to marry a n!&&e@, now, would you?" Thus, as I remember it, this was the birth of that delightful piece of jingoism.
Yeah, the cognitive dissonance of modern conservatism is hitting the fan.
Government is so incompetent, it can't be trusted to handle relatively straightforward and generally one-size-fits-all things like health, education, social welfare, etc.
It can only be trusted to administer complex, controversial and idiosyncratic things, like our personal values.
The underlying problem w/ always trotting out that old trope of "family values" is
Whose family?
Whose values?
ysbaddaden @ 12:
As part of that ownership society, he wants us all to be "McDollar Menunaires." Got doublecheese?
Randall writes: “People have finally figured out that family values was just a red herring, a Republican bumper sticker slogan which was used to keep people from paying attention to the real issues, i.e. the Iraq war, the skyrocketing deficit, the recession we’re in, a lack of single-pay health insurance for everyone, and a government that has never worked for the people, but only for the military industrial complex and for big business.”
And rest of us, the ones who employ critical thinking and push back against scare-mongering and sloganeering, line up behind folks like Randall and say:
"Yeah, no-frickin'-duh."
It seems at times like Republicans actually prefer being ignorant.
Or maybe the family values meme has been dropped because the bigots who used this as code words to promote their bigotry can't extract any more mileage out of it because most Americans are beginning to wise up to their game? Or maybe it's because too many of their biggest "family value" advocates have been caught snorting methamphetamine from the end of a cock, or soliciting gay sex in public rest rooms, or....?
Hate isn't a family value.
JasonS @ 15:
Hah! Exactly. Amazing how they pick and choose when their list of beliefs are convenient for them and when they aren't, isn't it? Kind of like their 'fearless' (more like 'feckless' and 'cowardly') leader picks and chooses which laws he'll obey.
Bonkers @ 18:
Ignorance may be bliss but it's no substitute for a hit of crack.
cheesesauce @ 17:
You wanna cut my cheese?
GOP
Gay Ol' Party.
While I'm not saying this would be a successful tactic, I think the GOP is gonna go EVEN MORE to the right before it starts balancing out. All the evangelicals got a taste of what it's like to have "one of their own" get a moment (2 terms, really) in the sun (never mind the fact that Dubya isn't really all that religious, or else the guilt of his incompetence would tear him apart, he wears the suit well and to these bozos that's all that matters). They're gonna want more, and they won't accept being told to go back to the shadows well. There's gonna be MORE talk of family values, from gay marriage and abortion to "race mixing" and prayer in school. And like all those shoppers who are slowly swayed by Ms. Carmody in Stephen King's The Mist, the GOP rank and file are either gonna find Jesus or fight to maintain the "integrity" (heh heh) of the GOP brand.
Family Values are the values that individual families pass down to their younger generation. They cannot be universally defined, cannot be enforced, cannot even be adhered to once branded. Why they keep aspiring to rigid constructs is beyond me.
ysbaddaden @ 22:
I only melt the cheese, and pour it over things distasteful to make them palatable.
Bonkers @ 18:
It seems at times like Republicans actually prefer being ignorant.
Prefer? Shit they love being stupid. Being willfully ignorant is something they strive for...
Republican values or not Christian values. No Republican values can be found in the Bible, all Republicans are just lies and misleading statements. And I say once more you can not be a Christian and a Republican. there values are to far apart
slappy magoo @ 24:
I made a similar point yesterday with regards to the Huckabee surge. Those that are ready and willing to move further to the right will lose the support of the moderates ("moderate" w.r.t wingism). You can see this playing out now in Iowa (see McCain). Whether it will result in a larger dem party and a larger independent block or the emergence of a 3rd party, none can say.
roxnev @ 28:
Untrue. The Bible has very specific guidelines for selling your children into slavery. Very Republican.
Family values?....as in send your kids to Iraq,and be a good little republican?
This broadcast is remarkable to me. There was not a single letter read by Cafferty that was either supportive of Republicans or that attempted to sneak in a sucker punch at liberals/Democrats. Not one. Every one of them showed contempt for the Republican charade of "family values." It would have been completely unthinkable until recently for them to not throw in a token stupid dittohead email in the name of "balance." I hate to push the limits of what this means because I realize it's just one day of one show on one network, but is it possible we're seeing a tipping point here?
JasonS @ 15:
Jason, this is an awesome post...hits the nail on the head.
Republican Family Values:
1. It's not gay if it's for pay, or if you are in a men's room, or if you are a GOP operative hooker ala Guckert.
2. Going for the hookers who will keep you in diapers is no big deal, cause you asked God to forgive you and besides, your wife is too stupid to care.
3. Sherwood choking his mistress is good, you gotta keep your family life and your sex life separate.
4. Tax cuts are godly, and don't let any of those refugees in from Nawlins.
5. War is good. Killing for the USA is good. Mercenaries, good. Death penalty is good. Getting rid of Head Start is good. Getting rid of SCHIP is good. Abortion, bad.
6. Cronyism is next to godliness which is almost as great as nepotism.
Absolutely - Republicans are downplaying "family values" because case after case has shown that they don't even practice it. And I don't just mean deviant behaviour, I mean the legislative record of Republicans. Anyway, always fun to watch the RNC squirm now that they've got a full-fledge Evangelical wacko leading the pack.....
And, remember friends, when the Cons try to con you with their "government doesn't work" mantra, the answer is that it doesn't work when people who hate it are in power and will do everything they can to make sure it doesn't work. Except, of course, when they want it to work to enrichen their friends....
The last traces of Republican family values got flushed down the drain in an airport men's room in Minnesota.
When I first heard some Republican use the phrase, "family values" I was baffled. How could that mean anything, since everybody has a family except orphans and some widows, widowers, or single sole survivors. And it is most unkind (and unChristian) to exclude those people.
However, the phrase did work for them for quite awhile. I agree its day is done.
The Family Values group should be worried. They've now taken to shooting each other. What's up with Colorado, anyway?!
The reason the republicans aren't mentioning family values is because it's one issue that they are weakest on. They showed their hypocrisy over the last 7 years, and are now afraid to even mention the term.
Amen brother, amen.
The republican 'Family Value' pitch lost it's punch when folks discovered that a republican family consisted of three toilet stall buddies and a pet sheep.
Vitam Vas @ 13:
That is what he says now... but that isn't what he has done in the past:
In Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate, from 1996 to 2004, almost two-thirds of the money he raised for his campaigns -- $296,000 of $461,000 -- came from PACs, corporate contributions, or unions, according to Illinois Board of Elections records. He tapped financial services firms, real estate developers, healthcare providers, oil companies, and many other corporate interests, the records show.
Gay bashing is OUT?
Screw Karl Rove! (Well, no...not literally. That will have to wait for a time when the majority is gay or bisexual, and all the Republicans will be jumping on that bandwagon, and spreading hatred for the heterosexual minority.)
Screw Karl Rove! Where the hell is Ken Melman when you need him!? ....oh...oh yea...
But yeah, gay bashing has run its course, and is too banal for soundbites. I think this year ATHIEST-bashing is in. Or SECULAR HUMANIST-bashing. That seems to be the way they're going.
Anytime I hear the phrase 'family values' my thoughts instantly go to Larry Craig, or Ted Haggard, Florida Rep. Bob Allen (bathroom boy), or Brown County's Donald Fleishman, or Brent Schepp or Mark Foley, or Larry Corrigan or John David R. Atchison, or Brian J. Doyle, or State Rep. Richard Curtis or Joey DiFatta, or Senator David Vitter or Jeff Gannon or A. Paul Carlock, Jr. (Klutzo the Christian Clown!) or.......
anyway, it just doesn't have the right ring anymore.
Randall 4 Prez
For the past 7 yrs the Republicans have had one sexual scandal after another with the tacit approval of the family values constituency. Its not that they aren't as passionate about their ill founded beliefs; its that they don't have a leg to stand on.
If you tack on the illegalities and corruption; and sprinkle on this administrations plethora of insults to our constitution and nation as we knew it; well then the family values groups are just actually pathetic presently in the voting minds of America. By not standing up for what is actual family values (like the Foley case, certainly not a resounding peep was heard for justice by this vacuous crowd) they have become the joke that this administration is as well.
rapture bunnies always memory hole their own
Of course Family Values is still an issue. The Values of the Families of the thousands killed in an illegal war will be very important.
VOTE HILLARY
Democrats family values=
Hate America
Hate big corporations
It’s ok to have affairs with 21-Year-Old Interns
Promote Paganism
Tolerate terrorist
If you get pregnant suck the baby’s brains out
Religion is stupid
Have sex with your adopted daughter
Get on welfare
Blame the USA for everything wrong in the world
To me it means a lot of the older people are dying off. There is a huge divide between my generation and my parent's' generation, but much less so with me and the generation that follows me.
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