Comments (16)

Manci Patio wrote on January 4, 2008 12:15 PM:

You ask: (if you're going to pull a dirty trick, why not at least pose as the IRS or the Justice Department?)

Answer seems reasonably straightforward, an individual sending a letter that misrepresents him/herself as an employee of or contractor working for either the IRS or the Justice Department is inviting significant criminal penalties and a very high likelihood of prosecution.

A "Concerned Christian" who as a citizen is presumably alerting another citizen of government action is exercising free speech and is very likely not a candidate for prosecution.

YY wrote on January 4, 2008 12:20 PM:

The mailer's love of exclamation marks smells like Ron Paul.

FlyOnTheWall wrote on January 4, 2008 12:54 PM:

What, precisely, is the dirty trick here, Paul?

The letter simply points out that pastors have no legal right to use their church to make political endorsements. That's perfectly true. The reason that Huckabee's upset is that these rules are widely flouted, and ministers routinely use their pulpits to endorse specific candidates, and to urge their parishioners to vote on their behalf. The phantom threat of prosecution, he reasonably believes, might well deter some of his most influential supporters from illegaly advocating his candidacy.

This isn't analogous to classic scare tactics - letters warning of crackdowns on voter fraud, falsely claiming that more ID is necessary than is in fact the case, or that immigration rules will be enforced at the polls. In each of those cases, there's an effort to make voters who are generally wary of interaction with law enforcement stay home - even if they have every legal right to vote. This letter doesn't warn about voting, just advocacy.

Alas, it's also a hoax. Despite Grassley's bluster, there's virtually no evidence that the IRS is interested in enforcing these rules - pastors may still flout the law with impunity. If there's a dirty trick here, it's the suggestion that citizens need to play by the rules - that's clearly not actually the case.

slowlayne wrote on January 4, 2008 12:56 PM:

Ed Rollins gets a gold star for this one. It's a tried and true GOP tactic to make your own supporters think they are the target of someone else's dirty tricks.

The object of the letter was not to scare the pastors in to submission but to enrage them and turn out their flocks for Huckabee. The establishment GOP has been using this tactic on a grand scale for 30 years by hyping the “liberal assault on religion.”

Who better to make feel persecuted than people who already think the system is working against them, who command the pulpit and who can call forth the righteous indignation of their followers to smite the heathens?

You can summon a lot of biblical outrage with a first-class stamp.

Aaaargh wrote on January 4, 2008 1:33 PM:

The IRS is happy to enforce these rules, as long as they're enforced against a preacher supporting a liberal candidate. That is beyond the pale.

Stuart Eugene Thiel wrote on January 4, 2008 1:43 PM:

Dear Fly: In this context, the only difference between "dirty trick" and "hoax" is whether the perpetrator benefits. Whether the warning was intended to cow the ministers or to inflame them into righteous wrath remains to be seen. But somebody had an agenda.

Nobody would pay any attention to this unless they were half-mad with paranoia already. "In the SLAMMER"? And signed by "Concerned Christian"?

Bill D. wrote on January 4, 2008 1:53 PM:

This is absolutely a Huckster Hoax and far beneath the quality level of a Rove stunt. So laughably phony that even a Revival Tent Thumper wouldn't be put off pushing for Huck, yet enough to rile up the snake handlers, who could possibly credit any of the opposing campaigns with this tactic? Yet, when the Wolfster wes reporting this on CNN last evening, the report speculated on all the possible suspects except the most obvious, that it was the Huck team themselves.

Joe wrote on January 4, 2008 2:11 PM:

I love it. Four sentences and they couldn't even get all the spelling correct.

Dee Illuminati wrote on January 4, 2008 2:18 PM:

The thing that I found interesting was the marginalization of 10% of the voting public by the media in respect to Ron Paul. Now before I get accused of being a schill let me explain, the demographics of this 10% is young activists whom are internet savy and whom are first time participamts in the process, the are at the craddle of the craddle to grave marketing cycle and similar in respects to the demographics of their activist parents of the 60's.

If your looking for the 'buzz' demographics or the 'trend' demographics, or the marketinhg that can't be marketed, the movers and shakers of these movements, well I think that they are that 10%, they will of oourse someday be interested in 401K's and careers and families.

Hillary said she wanted the young people and they evidently didn't want her.

But what I found interesting was how the MSM was rejecting in masse this marketing demographic. I mean it was as if the account execs at Fox thought: hmmm lets see, these 10% of viewers don't matter and we don't want their business anyway.

Well Hillary does, and that speaks more to her intellect than the TV execs at the major networks.

Hut the story not covered was the 'indpependents' that TPM failed to allow to participate, no Ron Paul poll here, no forum, 10 percent that don't exist. Tomorrows voters today, the swing vote in any analysis.

It is a blunder and a spectacle to see how not how Ron Paul was marginalized, and quite possibly with air-time might be so, but instead the 10% of voters by the media.

That folks is todays untold story and a scoop from Dee Illuminati that TPM missed, how 10% of a market was ignored, in what will be a tight race of change and the strongest demographic of change, ignored.

I'll be subconciously that these 10% resent Fox years from now and become CNN viewers if CNN doesn't overtly marginalize their participation, or their message.

Only Hillary seemed to 'get it.'

POed Lib wrote on January 4, 2008 2:26 PM:

Quite frankly, there are a lot of scummy turd pastors running political campaigns from their pulpit. This may have come from a dirty trick, or it may be a real thing.

antelope wrote on January 4, 2008 3:23 PM:

Didn't the IRS go after an Episcopal
Priest in California for speaking against Bush in 2004 from the pulpit?

Carolyn wrote on January 4, 2008 5:36 PM:

antelope: absolutely they did and it was so blatantly political the congregation got furious and fought back. The case was dropped, a fact that got not near the media attention as the case being brought.

carolyn wrote on January 4, 2008 5:43 PM:

YY: I am a flaming liberal but I must respond to your misguided comment. Ron Paul is probably the most honest person running. If he was pissed at some ministers he'd sign the letter. However, given the attempt of the letter writer to appear stupid, could have been Romney's people.

freepatriot wrote on January 4, 2008 7:09 PM:

so where is the crime here ???

this is basically an instance where a person warned a minister of the dangers of politicizing the pulpit

what's wrong with that ???

Roberta wrote on January 4, 2008 9:56 PM:

Dee--

Can you please look up the rules for "whom." You're killing me.

But thanks for the info about Paul's support.

Mari wrote on January 6, 2008 1:40 AM:

Actually, a less than perfect letter probably came form one of his opponents for the Republican nomination. If it is a stealth letter, surely no other Republican wanted it to seem professional just so everyone would think it was not from any opponent's campaign. A dirty trick wrapped in anonymity.