[Above: the Rhea County courthouse. For those of you reading this blog in other parts of the nation, Dayton, Tennessee is located about a half an hour north of Chattanooga.]
From yesterday’s Dayton Herald-News:
DAYTON INVITES SARAH PALIN TO SPEAK
Will Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, star of the recent Republican National Convention, be visiting Dayton in the near future? Dayton’s Randall McGinnis hopes so and so do a lot of community leaders.
Palin, a relative unknown before John McCain picked her as his vice-presidential running mate, became an overnight sensation in Republican circles with her convention speech last Wednesday.
McGinnis, who used to live in Alaska, thought, “why not ask her to come speak in Dayton?”
“This is essentially the buckle of the Bible Belt,” McGinnis said last week. “Palin is going to be the candidate of evangelicals, so what better place to speak than on the steps of the Rhea County Courthouse where William Jennings Bryan so eloquently defended evangelical Christianity in 1925?”
McGinnis broached the subject with friends at the American Legion hall in Dayton and found they were all in support of it, so he decided to take the ball and run with it.
He contacted local officials and community groups and asked them to write letters of invitation. He has already collected letters from several local organizations, including Bryan College and The Family Church.
Rhea County Executive Billy Ray Patton, the Dayton Chamber of Commerce, the Rhea County Republican Party and the Rhea County Veterans Committee have all promised to write letters this week, according to McGinnis, who asks that other local organizations draft letters of invitation as well.
McGinnis plans to place all the letters in the hands of Congressman Zach Wamp as soon as possible, and Wamp has agreed to hand-deliver the letters to the McCain-Palin campaign staff in Washington, D.C.
“We’re 100 percent behind Mr. McGinnis’s efforts,” said Rhea County Road Supervisor Tommy Snyder who is a leader in the Rhea County Republican Party. “We’ll do whatever we can to help.”
McGinnis said if Palin does accept his invitation, he would like to make it a regular election year event to host the presidential or vice presidential candidate wishing to address conservative Christians nationwide.
“I’d like to see Dayton back on the national stage like it was in 1925 during the Scopes Trial, except now I’d like to be for a better reason,” McGinnis said.
John Carpenter can be contacted at john.carpenter@rheaheraldnews.com
What are the chances of this happening? Well — I hate to break it to the folks in Dayton, but if I were you I would expect her to decline the invitation & be pleasantly surprised if the opposite turns out to be true.
Electorally, McCain has no reason for campaigning in the state of Tennessee. Look at the state’s poll numbers & see why. It would be a waste of resources. [& by the way, the good news for you - &, frankly, bad news for us, in terms of the station's bottom line - is that means you'll see a lot fewer TV ads in this market]
But it’s smart for Daytonians to use the “what Dayton represents to evangelical Christianity” tactic, though. I give the chances of a Palin visit to Dayton happening at about 30%.
MORE: Here’s a good piece on Dayton, Tennessee’s contribution to American history, as referenced above:
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
What do you think? Will she come to Dayton? Post a comment & share your thoughts!
What do you think?
Former GOP presidential candidate (who also once ran against Barack Obama) Alan Keyes makes the Christian argument against Sarah Palin. The basis of this argument is that John McCain is not truly anti-abortion:
THE WARREN PIECE
December 23rd, 2008, 9:27 am by Dan LehrI was out for much of last week & therefore missed much of the hoo-ha surrounding the president-elect’s choice of pastor Rick Warren to read the invocation at his inaugural.
For those (likely very few) of you who have not heard yet, Warren is a preacher whose stance against homosexuality runs contrary to the views of Barack Obama.
But that didn’t stop Obama from the invite:
..even though the move has angered folks on both the right & the left.
My 1st thought about this is that we’re likely seeing a microcosm of what we’ll see over the next four years. It’s, in its own way, a “Nixon-in-China” moment. It’s interesting to watch to see who gets uncomfortable.
My 2nd thought is that you’d never-in-a-million-years see a President-elect McCain extend such an invitation to someone perceived to be a foe of “his sides” “religion.”
It’s a shrewd move. & not just for Obama. (Read my post from earlier this year highlighting an excellent article on Warren’s role in a “new evangelical movement” here.)
E.J. Dionne thinks so too:
“Although I support same-sex marriage, I think that liberals should welcome Obama’s success in causing so much consternation on the right. On balance, inviting Warren opens more doors than it closes.
The always-curmudgeonly Richard Cohen, though, thinks the move is a wrong one:
But I think Melissa Etheridge, who happens to be gay, married, & with children, puts my thoughts about the matter best:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Barack Obama • Commentary • Dumb Controversies • Faith & Religion | Post a Comment »