Jim Dao has a fascinating, and somewhat frightening, piece in the NY Times today about the Ohio Restoration Project. Apparently, the conservative churches in the state are planning a takeover of the GOP:
Christian conservative leaders from scores of Ohio's fastest growing churches are mounting a campaign to win control of local government posts and Republican organizations, starting with the 2006 governor's race.So, at least now they are being up front about it. The OH GOP will really be the party of the right wing zealots. The theocracy is no longer theoretical.
In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year.
The initial goal is to elect Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a conservative Republican, governor in 2006. The group hopes to build grass-roots organizations in Ohio's 88 counties and take control of local Republican organizations.
I love this passage:
"The establishment of the Ohio Republican Party is out of touch with its base," said Russell Johnson, the pastor of the Fairfield Christian Church and the principal organizer of the project. "It acts as if it lives in Boston, Mass."Damn, those right wingers love to bash Massachusetts. Even better, though, is the reaction from the GOP leaders in the state:
Republican officials are watching warily. The chairman of the state party, Robert T. Bennett, warned that the decade-long dominance of his party could be jeopardized if it was pushed too far to the right. "This is a party of a big tent," Mr. Bennett said. "The far right cannot elect somebody by itself, any more than somebody from the far left can."Note to the GOP: To quote from the Bible (I think it's appropriately Biblical) "as ye sow, so shall ye reap."
