Mitch McConnell’s Embarrassment [View all]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/7017/mitch_mcconnell_s_embarrassment/

April 9, 2013 3:45pm Mitch McConnell’s Embarrassment Post by SARAH POSNER

Mother Jones' newly acquired audiotape of a strategy session of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign staff—the acquisition of which McConnell has asked the FBI to investigate—is an understandably embarrassing exposé of the cavalier disregard of humans so common in political opposition research. In the tape, his campaign staff ridicules would-be Senate challenger Ashley Judd for her history of mental illness, for her feminism, and for her liberal Christianity.

But what's really probably actually embarrassing to McConnell is that his staff comes across as distinctly less than enmeshed in the religiously conservative mindset of the GOP's base.

Someone with a passing knowledge of Christianity might not have mocked Judd for citing the love of animals espoused by that inconsequential figure in Christianity, St. Francis of Assisi (which of course isn't too embarrassing since the new Pope is named for him). How does the staff on the tape think the base would react to Judd's remarks on "Brother Donkey" and "Sister Bird?" A male voice on the tape is heard saying, "The people at Southeast Christian [Church] would take to the streets with pitchforks."

Take to the street with pitchforks for citing St. Francis? I'm pretty sure that's not the PR makeover the religious right has been waiting for.

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