You want to know how twisted my internet hookup is? Casa Pastor connects to the series of tubes not with a cable, not with a satellite, but with a radio.

Which means that if there's interference in the air, I'm pretty much out of business, unless I want to use the dialup over at the office.

That's sick.

Anyway, the royal magicians have been summoned from their caves on the mystic mountain of Neeka-tave. Until then, I'm at the coffee shop in Kewaskum, which hardly sounds weirder than Neeka-tave. Apologies if I'm a little scarce, or if I don't return e-mail right away.

But while we're at it, go take a look at this petition in support of marriage equality. I'm signing it, you should too.

Update: as Asbury Park points out in comments, the petition is for clergy. Pastors, priests, and rabbis, you know what to do.

By all rights, Mrs Pastor should be writing this today, since I filled in for her last night. But she's been dealing with hot, bored, and/or obnoxious children all day (one of whom is piling up consequences for himself on the front porch even as we speak).

I think I'll take my chances here, thank you. One lump or two?

Yesterday, I raised the question of why Democrats - really Obama's campaign and Faith in Public Life - felt obliged to attend the forum hosted by Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church.

The answer to that question turns out to be pretty simple: Rick Warren reaches millions and millions of people. He asks, the candidates respond. Nobody wants to piss off Rick Warren. Fine.

Instead of using a rhetorical question to make my point, however, let's lay it out in positive terms.

1. Obama's attendance at Saddleback is not a problem in itself. I have no idea why Faith in Public Life would want to get involved in the program, but perhaps they'll give me a perfectly reasonable justification.
2. Religious outreach to Evangelicals is not a problem. As Jesse Lava points out in the comments, it's analogous to the 50-State strategy: you work to extend your capabilities even in areas (or demographics) where the chances for an outright win aren't great to keep pressure on the other team and on the off chance that something breaks your way. Over the long run, it's a sensible strategy.
3. Here's where the problem comes in: the way Evangelical outreach gets sold is ZOMG, there's a huge field awaiting the harvest if only Democrats will do X, Y, or Z!! But the way it gets defended is: it's a long-term project that will pay off over time, so be patient. Well, which is it?

   The math seems to indicate that as a short-term strategy, it's not working very well. Other than Evangelicals moving away from a Republican partisan ID, there's not much solid evidence to say that they're prepared to vote Democratic in 2008. There's plenty of anecdotal stories coming out about Evangelicals flirting with Obama, but many of those stories originate with the Jim Wallis crowd, who obviously have a vested interest here, and again, the numbers just aren't there.

   And if this is a long-haul strategy, boy, we sure seem to be putting a lot of eggs in one basket, don't we? Obama has done a few events with mainline Protestants, most notably speaking at the UCC General Synod last year, but I can't remember the last time he spoke to a primarily Catholic audience, and lately his religious outreach seems laser-guided on Evangelicals.

4. So it's not so much that I have a problem with the Evangelical strategy per se, but I do have to wonder whether it's going to pay the dividends promised. That's a particular concern because more and more it seems to be pushing out any other outreach. Jesse suggests that focusing on Evangelicals is worthwhile because they're the most responsive to religious messages, which very well might be the case. But my question is whether it's worth it to try to draw in a few Evangelicals with a religious message when an economic message, or one based on the war, could bring in many more Catholics and mainline Protestants?

   Put differently, the Evangelical strategy seems to be predicated on this being a swing election. But it's not. This appears to be a base election, with the Democratic base swelling.

To sum up, spending so much time on Evangelicals might be a good strategy under the right circumstances. But it's probably not worthwhile to pursue them to the exclusion of other religious groups - not to mention the secular folks - and nobody so far has been able to demonstrate concretely why these are the right circumstances and what the returns are likely to be.

I'm listening, I really am. But I'd like to hear more than "boy, there's a lot of Evangelicals out there." There's lots of other folks, too. Show me the math, somebody. Anybody?

I'm getting this in while I can - the interwebs are acting up at Casa Pastor today.

But did anybody else see that our own br t got quoted in the Boston Globe?

This may not make me very popular, but I do have to wonder what it is anybody thinks a non-debate between John McCain and Barack Obama at Rick Warren's church is going to accomplish, other than stoke Warren's ego. The candidates aren't actually going to interact, and they won't take questions from audience members. They might just as well unveil a matched set of campaign ads and save us all 59 minutes.

This is indeed a curious event. What does Faith and Public Life get out of co-sponsoring the forum? Rick Warren is hardly a liberal. While he's good on a couple of issues like poverty and HIV/AIDS, " he opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and supports the death penalty" - and he's endorsed some truly nasty African homophobia.

I was all in favor of the last such event at Messiah College. That allowed Democrats to explore their values in a novel context. I'm sure that this one gives my friends at FiPL a higher profile, but the cost for that is putting a blessing on Warren as a centrist, a benediction I'm not sure he deserves.

But the powers that be within the Democratic party have apparently decided that their top priority in religious outreach this year is getting the kind of people Rick Warren represents. I don't know if that has anything to do with Leah Daughtry's program, or the influence of the usual suspects. It's a bad idea, whoever it belongs to. Here's the partisan ID among selected religious groups, according to the Pew Forum:

And here's how those same people broke for the candidates in a recent poll:

Given the first results, I'm willing to bet that the second is a bit of an outlier, especially since the second is based on Registered Voters, not a solid measure at this stage of the game. But the point remains the same either way. If you look at the numbers, Catholics and mainline Protestants are the swing vote this year, not Evangelicals. So what makes the latter so much more desirable than the former? I've never gotten a straightforward answer to that question.

My dear grandmother, God bless her soul, used to talk about Chuck Grassley as "her Senator." Why a Danish immigrant who worked her way up from having barely two nickels to rub together - before the Depression hit - would endorse a conservative toad like Grassley over an ex-miner like Tom Harkin, I cannot say. She just did.

What would she have said about this?

Evangelical Christians in Iowa, dominant in the state's Republican Party, have denied Sen. Charles E. Grassley his request for a place on the state's delegation to this summer's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Grassley may attend the party's Sept. 1-4 nominating convention in St. Paul, but not as a voting delegate.

With a majority of nine out of 17 members on the Iowa Republican central committee, religious conservatives made Iowa Christian Alliance President Steve Scheffler chairman of Iowa's 40-member delegation in a vote immediately after their state party convention July 12.

"The Republican Party of Iowa is moving significantly to the right on social issues," the just-ousted Iowa Republican National Committee member Steve Roberts told The Washington Times. "It hurts John McCain's chances to win this state."

Other party officials said money for the party is drying up because of past mismanagement and current religious dominance, which has turned traditional Republican politics upside down.

"It's pretty well controlled now by the Christian Alliance," Mr. Roberts said. "If somebody came to me and wanted to be a delegate to the national party convention, I used to say, 'Talk to the state party chairman or to Grassley.' Now it's very simple. You go to the Christian Alliance, and they determine who is a delegate, and you have to do exactly as they say."

In recent weeks, religious activists replaced Mr. Roberts as the national Republican committeeman and also replaced the national committeewoman with pro-life advocates who also oppose gay marriage.

Barring Mr. Grassley from voting-delegate status is seen as a blow to him as the senior Republican official in the state, who normally might have led the convention's delegation.

Mr. Grassley had said "yes" when asked by Iowa Republican Chairman Stewart Iverson if he wanted to be a voting delegate to the national convention, Mr. Iverson said.

Political observers in Iowa saw the move against Mr. Grassley as retribution for his having tangled with evangelical pastors in his state. He initiated a Senate Finance Committee investigation of six televangelists for conspicuous personal spending.

Now, there's no love lost for Grassley, who's demonstrated his willingness to use religion to suit political purposes before.

But in addition to demonstrating how state GOP's are marching steadily to the right and on out of the mainstream, this story provides a huge opportunity for progressives willing to use it. Religious concern trolls constantly berate the Democrats for supposedly refusing Bob Casey Sr. a speaking spot at the '92 convention because of his pro-life positions. Can we pretty please with sugar on top do the same here? Oh, sure, the Republicans will deny it. But you and I know better. The modern GOP is so off-the-hook that they bounced a Senator from his delegation for the sin of demanding financial accountability from religious con men.

Repeat as necessary.

(Via our friends at Right Wing Watch.)

I love synchronicity. Yesterday morning I was attempting to sort out my thoughts on Austin, and why it was different than the netroots get-togethers in Las Vegas and Chicago. While I pondered weak and weary from a lack of caffeine required most dearly, an e-mail from the Alban Institute came tap-tap-tapping at my Inbox door:

Large Group Methods establish a climate necessary for whole-group events to be effective by breaking through the usual institutional silos, cliques, and hierarchies; leveling the playing field; giving people a voice; and setting up processes for conversations that make a difference.

Large Group Methods develop energy and commitment across the system. The core elements of most include:

• A clear purpose statement
• Stakeholder inclusion
• Interactive processes around concrete tasks appropriate to the purpose of the gathering
• Exploration of the institutional and external contexts before decision and action
• Self-managed small groups
• Focus on a preferred future and common ground
• Responsibility for action by participants

As Hunter pointed out the other day, this year's meeting seemed to lack an overall narrative. The first year it was "We exist!" The second year it was "We're powerful!" This year it was...what?

In future years, I thought, it would be helpful for the conference organizers to set a theme or a storyline for the meeting. That's bound to be difficult. Nolan Treadway was saying at the final panel that it sometimes felt like Netroots Nation was expected to be all things to all people. Inevitable, perhaps, and I certainly wouldn't envy the NN team the task of herding the bloggy cats, but there's nothing wrong with trying.

Setting a theme would go a long way toward meeting the criteria laid out above. Clear purpose, check. Stakeholder inclusion, check, especially if they're given a chance to participate in achieving that purpose. I've suggested to the NN folks that they find some worthy cause to support each year. The Netroots For The Troops project organized by timroff, bleeding heart, and others did a fantastic job of pulling people together, and it helped me a great deal in making sense of the Sunday Morning Thing. Integrating a project like that throughout the conference could do wonders.

"Exploration of the institutional and external contexts" is pretty much what you do at a conference by definition. "Focus on a preferred future and common ground" is easy enough to accomplish, especially with well-selected keynotes. Gore's environmental message on Saturday morning was great; it would have been even better in Pittsburgh, where the conference will be exploring a lot of green issues.

As for "Responsibility for action by participants," well, yes. They tried to do give us some kind of responsibility with Van Jones' keynote on Sunday morning, but of course by then half the people were gone, and half the remainder was too tired and too hung over to really listen. There has to be some way of getting the message to people earlier, perhaps through early distribution of the Sunday keynote. Or some damn thing.

Anyway, between reforming the panel selection process and finding a cheaper venue for next year, the organizers have already significantly improved the conference, I believe. Now, if they'll only defer to my suggestions and do everything I ask, things will go just perfectly in Pittsburgh.

By, like, a lot:

Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new poll. Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.

The findings were released as part of a recent survey of American Jews by the new progressive pro-Israel group J Street. They seem to upturn some of this year's conventional political wisdom.

You can see the original data at the J Street site.

The results, while perhaps unexpected, are easily explained by an old Yiddish saying: Joe Lieberman iz a shmok. You do the translation.

One big and one, well, relatively smaller. Big: I neglected to mention when I posted my sermon yesterday that I leaned pretty heavily on P.W. Pruyser's article on Hope and Despair in the Dictionary of Pastoral Counseling. Sorry for the oversight.

The little one: thanks to Antonio in the security department at the Austin Hilton. The little boy's stuffed animal Blue Dog (a.k.a. Max from Clifford the Big Red Dog) apparently hid under a pillow while the rest of the family left for the airport. He seems to have wanted a quesadilla and a dog party without us.

Bad dog.

But Antonio tracked him down on a cleaning cart for us, and will mail him out first thing tomorrow morning. The little boy would have been fine without Blue Dog, but he'll be happy to see his buddy again.

I think I'm going to find a miniature cowboy hat and put it on him before he goes back.

Anyway, thanks Dr. Pruyser, and thanks, Antonio.

As usual, I'm out of pocket when the big story comes along. Fortunately, this story doesn't require much commentary:

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

“I never thought I would hear myself saying this,” Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. “… While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.” … In an advance copy provided to The Associated Press, Dobson said that while neither candidate is consistent with his views, McCain’s positions are closer by a wide margin.

“There’s nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context,” Dobson said in a statement to the AP. “Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain.”

First he said he wouldn't endorse McCain on a bet or a dare, now he says he just might.

As Steve Benen says, the strangest thing about Dobson's reversal might be that he'll get absolutely nothing out of it. But then, as I've said before, Dobson is a friggin' idiot who wouldn't know how to use his influence to get himself out of a speeding ticket.

He likes to think of himself as a principled man fiercely committed to advancing "family values," but he measures progress by the deference paid to him and his organization. Which means that he's really just a prideful bigot, and an increasingly irrelevant one at that.

There is no way for Dobson to come out of November more influential than he went in. Which doesn't mean that the battle for reproductive rights and equality for gays and lesbians is won; far from it. It just means that this particular idiot is losing his stranglehold on our political system, one miscue at a time.

And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

The following is part of the litany used at the Multi-Faith Worship Service at Netroots Nation this morning:

Good morning and welcome to our third Multi-Faith Worship Service at Netroots Nation. It is so good to be here again with you.

We gather this weekend at a moment of great hope. Progressives are hopeful that some kind of sanity and responsibility will be restored to our courts, our foreign policy, our domestic policy, our fiscal policy, our courts, our prosecutors, our Constitution and so on down the line until we get to the level of more and better dogcatchers. Throw all the bums out, and let's start over.

We are hopeful if for no other reason than that the illegal and immoral war in Iraq will finally come to an end in sixteen months or as best advised by field commanders to a new President of the United States.

There is so much to hope for, and so little time.