As a North Carolinian, it’s good to have the presidential candidates finally paying attention to our state … at least the Democrats. Yesterday, Barack Obama was here in Greensboro, and right now Hillary Clinton is speaking in the Cap City, Raleigh. As I was heading into the kitchen to make my lunch, I turned on the TV and heard Hillary tell a joke—in a way only Hillary can, with her usual … measured … cadence: “If you want to move forward, you put the car in ‘D.’ If you want to go backward, you put it in ‘R.’” Hmmm … what other words could the letters “D” and “R” represent to describe the two political parties? … And keep it clean!

The Clinton campaign machine is sucking wind like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, now that Hillary’s passive-aggressive, race-oriented attacks against Obama clearly backfired. Hillary’s huge loss in Georgia, where the Democratic base is largely black, sends the Clintons a strong message: Many black Democrats don’t like you after all. Hillary does not own the so-called “black vote.”

Although Obama won several states, he still trails in pledged delegates. Obama’s strongest wins were in his home state of Illinois and Georgia, where he’ll receive a significant share of the 288 delegates in those states.

Obama also won North Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, and Utah with 278 delegates up for grabs.

Clinton won her home state of New York and somehow managed to confuse Democrats in New Jersey and Massachusetts by winning in those states. Clinton has also duped Democrats in Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Arizona, and has won a sizable share of the 235 delegates in those states.

With very little ideological difference between Clinton and Obama it seems that Democrats cannot decide if they want a half-African as president or a woman.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are in the midst of an obvious identity crisis. Republican strategists are likely hoping that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination (which will probably happen) because a short, 71-year-old white guy doesn’t stand a chance against Obama if the Republicans choose McCain.

Conservatives understand why Dobson, Coulter, Limbaugh, and others are against McCain. Many wonder if he’s actually a conservative. “John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism, which he definitely is - he is bad for the country,” says Ann Coulter.

Additionally, it seems that America is ready for something different than a white male in the White House. Why are Republicans so incapable of producing a non-white male or female electable candidate for the office of president? Alan Keyes is totally unelectable, too quirky, and should never be encouraged to run for public office ever again. Moreover, the passing-over of J.C. Watts while he was in the House was truly scandalous.

As a result of Republican’s inability to construct a cohesive message and cultivate candidates that represent a changing America, a decisive loss should be expected in November, especially if Obama emerges as the Democrat’s choice.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Hillary Clinton claimed that the Iraqis are changing their ways — now contributing to the quelling of terrorist violence in their country — because of the Democratic candidates’ “commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009.”

So, William Kristol notes wryly on today’s New York Times op-ed page. . .

. . .the Democratic Party, having proclaimed that the war is lost and having sought to withdraw U.S. troops, deserves credit for any progress that may have been achieved in Iraq. That is truly a fairy tale. And it is driven by a refusal to admit real success because that success has been achieved under the leadership of … George W. Bush. The horror!

Read Kristol’s entire op-ed here.

The New York Times reports that “trackers” are putting online hours of raw video of Republican candidates. The video will be constantly updated and available here for activists and wannabe political attack dogs to paw through, hoping for a George Allen-type macaca moment. It already has about 80 videos of Giuliani, Romney, McCain and Thompson, including press availabilities, photo ops, coffee-shop visits, and formal speeches.

The Times acknowledges a downside to the tracker trend: “Trackers are part of the reason most candidates are so guarded when they appear in public. You never know who might be watching and what they will do with their video.”

The political price we pay in having wooden, scripted candidates is nothing compared to the cultural and spiritual price of this “gotcha” dynamic, played out in all spheres of life. Washington and Lee professor Edward Wasserman wrote in the Miami Herald about journalists who get fired for relatively minor ethics violations. “What’s with the vindictiveness, the self-righteousness, the callousness with which media bosses respond to even marginal instances of misconduct?” he asks. He cites a passage from Aristotle about hubris. “We usually understand hubris as overweening pride. But to Aristotle it consisted of inflicting shame or degradation, because ‘men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.’”

Editors who are outraged about “plagiarism” may be blasé about bias shown to evangelicals or pro-lifers. And for those not convinced by Aristotle, the Bible says, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” That doesn’t mean that we can’t judge actions — but we judge them from the position of fallen people, prone to misspeak.

Those looking for gotcha moments might want to become familiar with another Biblical expression: “He who digs a pit will fall into it.”

In 2004, Kerry’s theme was “Help is on the way.”  His running mate’s theme was not.  Edwards’s was “Hope is on the way.”  The former is typical Democrat rhetoric (Hi, I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help).  The latter is typical Populist rhetoric (Hi, I’m just like you).  This interesting article highlights the problems Kerry and Edwards had with each other’s approaches to the campaign.

To the end of their disappointing run, the two men were unable to agree on the script, whether for slogans or more substantive matters. And like so many political marriages, the one between Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards - Senate colleagues who became rivals then running mates but never really friends - ended in recrimination and regrets.

I guess this kind of thing happens a lot.

It’s the presidential election cycle, so evangelicals are in the news again. Which candidate will they support? What price will they exact? Are they even relevant? The New York Times ran a story recently on fissures within the movement (“The Evangelical Crackup”). But anyone who thinks that American evangelicals are going to dwindle in numbers or retreat into their old fundamentalist cultural withdrawal is deluding himself.

Nonetheless, evangelicals are not primarily a political movement, but a spiritual community. So they are for the most part conscientious and prone to seasons of critical self-assessment. Thus, a growing number of evangelicals has become uneasy with the spiritual toll that politicking has taken on them personally and on the evangelistic calling for the church. (Consider Blinded By Might: Why the Religious Right Can’t Save America, published in 2000 by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson).

Immediately after the broad Republican congressional defeat in 2006, David Kuo of the JWalking blog published this reflection on the evangelical soul searching that continues today (”Putting Faith Before Politics,” New York Times, November 16, 2006):

There has been a radical change in the attitudes of evangelicals—it’s just not one that will automatically be in the Democrats’ favor. You see, evangelicals aren’t re-examining their political priorities nearly as much as they are re-examining their spiritual priorities. That could be bad news for both political parties.

John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, the conservative Christian organization that gained notoriety during the 1990s when it represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton, wrote this after the elections: “Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality.” He went on, “Whereas Christianity was once synonymous with charity, compassion and love for one’s neighbor, today it is more often equated with partisan politics, anti-homosexual rhetoric and affluent mega-churches.”

Mr. Whitehead is hardly alone. Just before the elections, Gordon MacDonald, an evangelical leader, wrote that he was concerned that some evangelical personalities had been seduced and used by the White House. He worried that the movement might “fragment because it is more identified by a political agenda that seems to be failing and less identified by a commitment to Jesus and his kingdom.”

After the 2006 election, Beliefnet.com conducted an online survey of 2,000 people. Two findings struck me:

• nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement
• nearly 40 percent of evangelicals support the idea of a two-year Christian “fast” from intense political activism

A fast from “intense political activism” may be a healthy exercise for some, but abstaining from political engagement in general would be misguided. Christians are called to be good citizens. In a free republic, good citizens are politically engaged. It would also be a sinful neglect of one’s neighbor’s good. How to go about that political engagement Christianly appears to be the question for us at this end of the Bush presidency.

Let me suggest a theological answer. That is, I suggest that Christian political life in this land of liberty take its bearings from the character of God. I have three particular attributes in mind: his wisdom, his sovereignty and his goodness. In order for God to be trustworthy, he must have all these three attributes. If any one of them were missing, we would have no grounds for trusting him. (I’ll leave you to think it through.) Following this pattern, if Christians are obedient to the wisdom of God, we will be a godly influence. If Christians are confident in the sovereignty of God, we will be a humble influence. If Christians are confident in the goodness of God, we will be an effective influence.

It is not enough to be culturally conservative. We have to be biblically faithful. But biblical fidelity entails not only godly ends, but also godly means, godly temperament, and sensible efforts to accomplish those ends in a world that is not amenable to, and even resists, godliness.

However wise we have been at selecting our policy positions, we have behaved terribly in the way we have advocated those positions. As a result of our public involvement over the past thirty years, people have come to see evangelical Christians as self-righteous, unloving seekers after an earthly kingdom. “Humble” is neither the first nor the last word that comes to mind for most impartial observers. Unlike the non-Christians who share our political positions on matters of justice and morality but who are strangers to Christ, we should be oddly winsome. Though faithful to the truth, we should demonstrate a personal concern for our opponent’s well being. Public debate should be a form of love for neighbor, and evidently so.

As to effectiveness, Jesus calls us to be as wise (Gk, phronimos - prudent, provident) as serpents, but as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). God wants more than good intentions. He wants us to do good. He wants not only veracity, but also charity, and the best charity actually gets things done.

Looking to the next election, the one still ahead of us, Kuo offered these last words:

We will have to wait until 2008 to see just how deep this evangelical spiritual re-examination goes, and how seductive politics will continue to be to committed Christians. Meanwhile, evangelicals aren’t flocking to the Democratic Party. If anything, they are becoming more truly conservative in their recognition of the negative spiritual consequences of political obsession and of the limitations of government power.

Evangelicals should see that we live in tension between two poles. It is wrong for Christians to act franticly in the political arena the way our political opponents do who are without God and without hope in this world, and to grieve the way they do when we lose. It would also be wrong for us to retreat from our responsibility to exercise godly influence in that legitimate and noble sphere of life. Though there are limits to what can be accomplished through politics, there is also an obligation to accomplish what we can, and to do so in the confidence that God does not depend upon our efforts, but does all things well according to his at times surprising and even puzzling will.