Newt: 15% Of Nation Threatens Religious Freedom Of Other 85%(Not An Onion Item)

From USN&WR, we see that Gingrich isn't exactly crossing the droolers off his list for the New Republican Apparatus. Actually, he's pandering to them.

"In the last few years I've decided that we're in a crisis in which the secular state, if allowed, will fundamentally and radically change America against the wishes of most Americans," Gingrich said in a phone interview on Thursday. "You've had such rising hostility to religious belief that I wanted to reach broadly into the country and dramatically raise public awareness of threats to religious liberty."

Yes. Thursday. Yesterday. The very day some people were a-bitchin' & a-moanin' that the Prez was on the tube w/ Leno, when he should have been handling the economy. And meanwhile the "idea man" of the Gumming Our Peas Party is re-recycling the "atheists will put us Gawdly Murkins in camps" routine.

The PowerPoint slides list Republican senators and congressman with the highest ratings from the National Right to Life Committee and juxtapose them with ratings for the same elected officials from Americans for Tax Reform. The conclusion: politicians with the strongest socially conservative records also have the strongest antitax records. [...] "A lot of donors have been out to lunch on this issue," says Tyler. "If I can prove to them that mobilizing evangelical voters leads to the best economic policies, I don't have to convert them into Catholics or Protestants. It's pretty straightforward."

One question: Aren't most of them Prots or Catholics already? What's this conversion he thinks he has to perform? Otherwise, we have to say Gingrich's plot is very discouraging. Sensible, even. (In which case it may not stand a chance in the current "conservative" environment.) We don't need con men like Newtie re-uniting (let alone renewing) the Party of Nixon. By the way: Is it coincidence that these advertsare on the page w/ the Newt piece? (Free Newt! Get it?) No, it isn't. It's done by robot. But it isn't as if USN&WR doesn't know which stories will make the robots post the ads that are going to get the most clicks from the droolers who read it.