Items From Battlegrounders on National Review Online

FLORIDA: REV. JOHN

In addition to his appearance in Boca Raton (about which more later), Senator Kerry also spoke in Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday, from the pulpit of Mount Hermon African Methodist Episcopal Church. He’s spoken at several churches recently, apparently always from the pulpit, and always during a church service. He does not speak on the morning’s Gospel readings, or give his personal testimony – he gives his campaign speech. (Sunday’s sermon included an attack on Bush’s proposed social security reforms). Yesterday, the pastor compared him to Moses. Al Gore gave a similar speech on Kerry’s behalf at a church in Tallahassee; Ted Kennedy did the same in Philadelphia.

So . . . Bush mentions that he prays for God’s guidance when he makes a decision, and liberal activists accuse him of mixing religion and politics, in their mind a great sin (if they’ll forgive my using an archaic term). Kerry and his surrogates give campaign speeches in church, from the pulpit, during worship services, and liberal activists don’t raise a peep. Where is the ACLU protesting this outrageous destruction of the wall between church and state? Why such widely different reactions to Bush’s religiosity and Kerry’s? Could it be that the liberal activists sense that Kerry’s religious beliefs will never, ever lead him to depart from liberal orthodoxy in any meaningful way?

Does seem hypocritical doesn't it? When this issue was raised a few weeks ago, a spokesperson from the IRS said that they would look the tax stratus of churches involved with politicians.

VARIOUS: MILLIONS SPENT ON FINAL WEEK'S FLORIDA, OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA TV ADS

Station owners must be in heaven. The Associated Press reports that the Kerry and Bush campaign are spending around $40 for TV ads on just the final week of the campaign. "Of that, both sides are spending about $4.5 million apiece in Florida, at least $2.5 million in Ohio and $2 million in Pennsylvania."

When all the numbers have been added up, both sides will have shelled out more than $400 for radio and TV buys, and independent groups will have thrown in, at minimum, $100 million worth of spending.

IOWA: HOME OF THE MAYTAG REPAIRMAN

President Bush returns to Iowa today with stops planned in Council Bluffs, Davenport, and Dubuque. In one sense, the President arrives with less at stake than ever. Some estimate that over a third of the electorate has already cast their ballots through absentee voting or early voting. So each time the candidates return to Iowa it’s to woo a rapidly declining pool of remaining voters. At this rate of early voting, poll watchers on Election Day are going to feel like the spokesman for a fine Iowa product, the Maytag repairman.







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