I now feel safer with Cheney.

Don't mistake the enthusiasm of some out-of-touch extremists in the country's least densely populated state as a real trend... evangelicals who once supported Republican policies as a given are now much more ambiguous after the moral abuses of the Bush administration. Even the issue of gay marriage is not nearly as explosive as it was just 4 years ago. A significant chunk of the 70-something percent of people who disagree with or disapprove of the Bush administration's failed policies are religious. Evangelicals have not been completely blind to the corruption that has come almost exclusively from the Republicans in Washington.

Sarah Palin might energize a certain extremist segment of evangelical voters, but it's hardly fair to judge that reaction based on the enthusiasm of a handful of her home-town fanclub. Larger national trends have shown that evangelicals are less and less willing to be tied directly to any specific party or issue. And as polls have shown, the excitement that Sarah Palin generates for the McCain campaign has waned to nearly nothing in the past weeks, so that it is almost impossible to differentiate the popularity of McCain with evangelical voters pre-Palin with the campaign now that it's got its token pentecostalist. And many moderate-to-conservative Christians are not too fond of the pentecostalist movement and the undignified antics of speaking in tongues and laying-on hands anyway.

I think in the long run you will find that the overwhelming majority of Christians are as unimpressed by Palin as the rest of the country, and most of them are not apt to see her as ushering in some kind of religious movement.

If these people are to be believed, why have government at all? Or health insurence, any insurence for that matter?! It's all in gods hands right? This is truly dangerous.

...isn't this article helping with right-wing attempts to "normalize" Palin's fringe religious sect? By portraying these people as normal and glossing over things like speaking in tongues, it seems like the authors are trying to show Palin's "people" in the best possible light. If that's journalistic objectivism, more power to them; it doesn't help spread the word that this woman is dangerous and comes from a potentially dangerous world.

So if Palin's ascension is the work of God, then what will her defeat mean, precisely?

Kind of like how winning teams are quick to thank God for the win, but you never hear the losing teams say "I want to thank God for teaching us humility in this great defeat."

The American-style pentafundagelical Christianist God(tm) only helps winners, obviously. A Palin defeat will not be chalked up to God, of course, but to Satan. The solipsistic symmetry of self-righteousness works in mysterious ways. The perils of a shallow, callow religiosity as one's spiritual goalpost can be clearly seen in Palin and her ilk.

Then you can bet that God Has God Damned America.

Hold up. I'm receiving a prophecy.

McCain drops dead right after the inauguration party.

I am so tired of these fake christians on the right.

Against abortion but pro guns, pro war and professional liars.

Since Palin supposedly represents every dumb American, I can see why most in this country have no problem throwing out all logic and believing in god.

The problem is they don't have much logic to gt rid of.

A small style point if you want to appear well-informed on this topic: the final book of the Christian Bible is Revelation, not Revelations (it is the Revelation to John).

to hold a prayer session for political purposes?

Even a hint of mental illness used to be a total disqualification for the vice presidency. Remember how Thomas Eagleton wasn't able to run with McGovern in '72 because he had gone for electro-shock treatments? The idea was that, gee, it wasn't such a good idea to put thousands of nuclear warheads under the control of a lunatic.

Now we're looking at a possible vice president--hell, a possible president in the good chance that McCain doesn't see the end of his first term--who prays with witch doctors and thinks that God is using her as his stand-in. Anybody who isn't scared shitless is either too stupid, too deluded or too oblivious to deserve the right to vote.

Let's all pray John McCain does not win. OOOOOOOmmmmmmmm.

OOOOOOOOBBBBBBBBBMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAA.

Sarah Palin's role in this election is now essentially over. Unless she starts speaking in tongues on live TV, nobody but the fundy base (and maybe the Salon editorial board) is going to give a shit.

Isn't it illegal to hold a prayer session for political purposes?

No. It's illegal to hold a political session for prayer purposes. At least for now.

Color me scared.

How these nutjobs miss the similarities to their brethren in other religions is beyond me.

If prayer could solve all the nation's ills, then what the hell are we spending $700 billion+ on, exactly? I'm sure quite a few people have been offering some pretty fervent prayers up throughout all this.

Just like I'm praying that these idiots and their mangled chromosome pick never get anywhere near the White House.

Isn't it illegal

to hold a prayer session for political purposes?

Um, what? No.

(Were you joking? I can't tell.)

and finally put a fork in all Sarah Palin all the time reporting.

She's done.

Can we now move on to another freak show?

I agree. This must be the work of some divine hand or a manifestation of karma. But what are we being punished for?

God was too busy paying attention to the debate- and Ms. Palin's career - to honor the Greek Orthodox preacher's request to "reverse the curse" and send the Cubs to the World Series!

He brought up Palin - I didn't; I know not to discuss politics with him - with praise for her righteousness and God-fearing ways. Here's how these people think...they truly believe she is called by God to "save" the country by bringing the Christian ideals into the Constitution and into the laws of the land. The (Christian) Biblical belief system will then sweep the land with righteous zeal and return us to our "true roots". When I said, "If God wants her to be elected, why is she so stupid and ill-equipped to lead? Surely that dampens her chances of being elected." The answer: sometimes God uses the foolish to lead us to the straight path. "Well, then," I asked, "the Bible reads that all sins are equal in the sight of God. A sin is a sin and no one sin carries more weight than another. All are equally repugnant to God. While Palin would outlaw abortion as the sin of murder, she is guilty of lying, of encouraging the murder of innocents when she supports the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, and of greed when she abuses her position by taking more reimbursements than she is entitled to." (See? I can talk this talk, too.) The answer: Every single one of these is a lie fabricated by the evil media and the Obama camp. And by the way, was I aware that Obama was a Muslim and without question the anti-Christ?

This is the way they think. Ya can't argue with 'em, don't cha know? All you can do is vote against them.