Ordained by God
by digby
It looks as thought the Perry camp is just going flat out for the Christian Right what with his not-very-subtle anti-Morman campaign and now his wife going way beyond the normal dogwhistles to proclaim Perry has been ordained by God. Get a load of this from Sarah Posner:
About contemplating a run for president in 2010, "God was already speaking to me," she said, "but he [Rick] didn't want to hear it."
But, she went on, "he was hearing from other people, too." In the first of several biblical references, she added, "he needed to see the burning bush."
Her husband prayed, Perry insisted. "He threw that fleece out there twice to make sure it came back with what he needed to do." This is a reference to Gideon's fleece, which, as Anthea Butler explained:
refers to an account in Judges 6:33-40. Gideon sets fleece on a threshing floor, using it as a way of asking God for a sign whether or not to go into battle against the Midianites. God gives Gideon the sign to smite the Midianites and to do battle with his Baal-worshiping neighbors.
Setting out Gideon's fleece, then, "is a way for believers to seek God's approval for their own ambitions or 'calling,' and to claim they are carrying out God's purposes in conquering heathens and idol-worshipers."
Who might the heathens be? Perry made the case that they may be lurking within the GOP: "We truly feel he was called to do this; we still feel called to do this," she said, adding, "We're being brutalized by our opponents, by our party. . . because of his faith. He's the only true conservative."
Unless Perry ends up as the Fred Thompson of this cycle and gets no votes, I'm guessing this is going to be quite a fight. That is a direct appeal to the religious right in language that suggests Perry is God's choice. It's pretty bold.
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