Bauer Urges Evangelicals to Keep An Open Mind on Thompson

Although James Dobson has already written him off (along with any hopes of winning in '08), religious conservative leader Gary Bauer is urging evangelicals to keep an open mind regarding Fred Thompson:

Social conservative leader Gary L. Bauer has issued an appeal to supporters to consider former Sen. Fred Thompson's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

"I hope pro-family, pro-life Christians will continue to keep an open mind about Senator Thompson's candidacy, even as we work with him to strengthen his stand on some key issues," Mr. Bauer wrote in an e-mail addressed to supporters. "A Thompson vs. Hillary [Clinton] race would be an easy call for me to make."

When he says he wants to "strengthen his stand on key issues" he's talking about the Federal Marriage Amendment, an idea Thompson does not support (and neither do I). It's funny how most evangelicals support a small government with minimal involvement in our daily lives...unless the issue is gay marriage or abortion. Then they suddenly want an all-powerful federal government to impose their ideas on the rest of America through federal laws or a constitutional amendment. If you're going to be a consistent small government conservative, you've got to be willing to allow the states to make the calls on those issues too, even if they all may not make the calls you like.

Some of the other evangelical leaders have their vestments in a wad over Bauer's statement, but Bauer is a long time political operative and understands that if you don't win, it doesn't much matter what you believe because your beliefs have no chance of succeeding if your ideological enemy holds political power.