The Saturday gala honoring Focus on the Family founder James Dobson started with a hint at the controversy over the announcement of Mitt Romney as the straw poll's winner. Only the overall results had been announced to attendees earlier in the day. It was at a subsequent news conference that FRC distributed documents making clear that Huckabee won by a large margin among people who voted in person and in the hours since, Huckabee partisans were grumbling. FRC's Chuck Donovan promised that everyone would get a detailed vote accounting as they left the event.
When Dobson took the stage he claimed that the media had been telling everybody that the pro-family and pro-life movements are dying, and to the media still in attendance, said, "Welcome to the morgue." Dobson also complained about media reports of a closed-door meeting of conservative religious leaders at which Dobson and more than 40 others pledged that if neither party nominated a pro-life candidate they would vote for a minor party candidate, kicking off weeks of controversy and infighting. Dobson said reports that the group would try to create a third party were wrong, saying he agrees with Gary Bauer that a third-party would be political suicide and would limit the ability to influence the GOP.
Dobson voiced his frustration with the GOP, griping that in spite of Bush in the White House and control of Congress for six years, the Republicans "did almost nothing." Dobson echoed complaints from throughout the weekend that the Republican Party had taken the movement for granted, paraphrasing Richard Viguerie's analogy that the GOP had treated the Religious Right like a mistress -- "they need us to get elected but want us to act like we don't know them if we meet them on the street."
Dobson recognized the great anxiety in the movement over the lack of a consensus presidential candidate to rally around, and about the prospects of a Democratic sweep in 2008. There is an "ominous feeling" that there are "gathering storm clouds" -- by which he meant "there is at least the possibility that the far, far left is going to capture the triple crown in 2008 -- that means the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, it means all the offices of government of course it would mean the Supreme Court will quickly change and that could set the direction of the dominant branch of government for 30 years." He added that the scenario might include statehouses across the country.
Of that "catastrophic" possibility, Dobson shouted "We can't let that happen!"
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