Loudly and eccentrically religious candidates represent the Republicans’ best chance of losing to Obama
Atlanta, Georgia
The prelude to the first presidential primaries is always an entertaining phase of the American electoral cycle. Exotic blooms flower for a moment or two, but shrivel almost as quickly when the voters discover what they actually represent. Two of this year’s morning glories are Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Congresswoman, and Rick Perry, the governor of Texas. Both, in addition to being highly photogenic, are serious evangelical Christians, possibly even ‘dominionists’, who seek to consecrate America’s political life to their religious convictions.
When Bachmann declared her candidacy this year Rolling Stone described her as ‘a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions’. She regards homosexuality as a form of illness and as a sin that separates the practitioner from God.
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