What is Hillary Clinton Up To When…

she says this?

I am a person of faith. I am a Christian. I am a Methodist. I have been raised Methodist….There is so much more in the Bible about taking care of the poor, visiting the prisoners, taking in the stranger…

It’s uncharacteristic of her, journalists note, to talk about her faith on the campaign trail.

Is she trying to say, “I’m not an atheist Jew“?

Or she is trying to make us forget she once referred to poor people—”these people,” she called them—as “deadbeats”?

Or is she trying to make us forget what she said in 2014 about children who are undocumented immigrants?

We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.

 

 

10 Comments

  1. Roqeuntin January 25, 2016 at 9:35 pm | #

    Like in the piece on Naked Capitalism today (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/will-clintons-flailing-protect-her-glass-jaw.html), she’s swinging wildly like a boxer who thought she’d have Sanders down for the count in the first round and is completely unprepared for a protracted battle. The Sanders campaign has her shook. That much is crystal clear.

    Bringing Christianity into it , when she historically hasn’t, is just one more wild swing. Personally, I think it makes her look like a craven opportunist who would say and do anything to get elected and hold onto power. I haven’t lived in Iowa for a straight decade, but I have a hard time imagining people would fall for this there. The thing is, she’s been around too long. If she was a new candidate, someone no one had heard of prior to this, she might be able to keep up the illusion she was a devout protestant, but people know her already. It’s a low blow, for sure, but I have a feeling she’ll get even meaner and dirtier if it really starts to look like she’s going down. Hillary doesn’t strike me as the type to be magnanimous in defeat. She’s too old and knows she really won’t get another chance. Once again, desperation is the key word.

    • Benjamin David Steele January 25, 2016 at 11:36 pm | #

      I’m an Iowan and have been so for most of my life. Religion doesn’t tend to be much of a political concern for Iowans, as it is considered a private matter. There are plenty of religious people here, but religion in Iowa is fairly moderate. This isn’t the Bible Belt. For one thing, most Iowans are Catholic and mainline Protestants, not Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.

      • Roquentin January 27, 2016 at 1:57 pm | #

        Much of my extended family lives there. I’d say this is true by and large. I was born and raised ELCA Lutheran, one of those vestiges of Scandinavian culture in my family.

        Still, there’s plenty of religious fundamentalism going on. However, anyone who subscribed to that wouldn’t take HRC seriously in the first place. The rest, the more moderate Christians, won’t really care. I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but the comment and stance seems pretty tone deaf. No one is talking about it though, so it wasn’t that big of a deal either way.

        • Benjamin David Steele January 27, 2016 at 8:33 pm | #

          My two closest friends, both raised in Iowa, are of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry. They both went to the same Lutheran church growing up.

          I agree with your assessment. Those who are fundamenalist simply aren’t going to care what Hillary says.

          Still, even much of the political right in Iowa is moderate compared to many states. Here is what the opening speaker said at an Iowan Tea Party rally some years back:

          http://okhenderson.com/2010/04/15/tax-day-tea-party-rally-des-moines-ia/

          “Let’s watch our words. Thoughts become attitudes, attitudes become words and words become actions. I hear too often people saying, ‘I’m scared. I’m scared for my country. I’m scared for my way of life’ and I don’t doubt the sincerity of that sentiment, but I do question the accuracy of the words.

          “Scared is negative. It’s powerless. It’s debilitating. Scared is what happens when you wake up in the middle of the night to that bump, right?

          “We’re frustrated. We’re angry. We’re concerned and trust me, many times I look at our elected leaders and I see the boogey man, but we are the Tea Party and we aren’t scared of anything. Are you scared? We don’t do scared.

          “Think of words that are positive and accurate, like ‘I’m engaged. I’m empowered. I’m moved to action.’”

      • Roquentin January 27, 2016 at 2:05 pm | #

        Also, one more thing while I’m talking about it. Iowa does really well politically (in terms of being liberal) for a state with such a low population density. I’ve lived in small towns in both Iowa and Illinois (ostensibly red state and blue state) and Iowa, excluding the Southwest portion, is better politically all around. Illinois is hardcore reactionary with one exception only: Cook County. If you look at a map of Illinois after an election it’s a sea of deep red with a little blue next to Lake Michigan. Iowa, by and large, isn’t nearly as bad.

        Iowa was also one of the first states to legalize gay marriage, long before NY and CA.

        • Benjamin David Steele January 27, 2016 at 8:38 pm | #

          When I was a kid, I lived for a few years in a suburb of Chicago. It was Deerfield. It had a history of keeping blacks out. There was a book written about it. You can even read about it on Wikipedia.

          My parents were born and raised in Indiana. That state has a clear Southern feel to it. That is why it is sometimes called Kentuckiana. My mom’s family did come from Kentucky originally. Ohio too is similar with being an Appalachian state. It even has the Southern metes and bounds system that defined many boundary lines.

          Iowa is different than those Midwestern states. We are on the other side of the Mississippi and settlement happened here much later, which means a different set of immigrants. Iowa is more similar to the Upper Midwest.

  2. Justin January 25, 2016 at 9:54 pm | #

    Every American politician who identifies as Christian has talked about their faith on the campaign trail at some point. It’s something that rather annoys me, actually, because it always seems to leave us atheists out. So it’s been refreshing that Clinton hasn’t talked much about her faith in public. Yet, apparently that was the wrong move, because as soon as she lets a mention of it slip during a period of heavy campaigning a week before the Iowa caucuses, suddenly she’s being accused of using her faith as an anti-Semitic attack.

    Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Feminists have been talking about that being the condition of women in this country for decades now, that even when women have choices, they get punished no matter what choice they make. It seems nothing has changed on that front.

  3. jonnybutter January 25, 2016 at 10:09 pm | #

    And/or is she making sure that hard working Americans, white Americans feel comfortable with her, before she ‘pivots’ in SC et. al.? Blech.

  4. xenon2 January 25, 2016 at 10:34 pm | #

    You know is an atheist Jew?

    Netanyahu.

    He believes God gave this land called Israel, to the Jews.

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