Prominent Evangelical Pastor: Demand Decency in a Presidential Candidate

Max Lucado is a best selling author and the pastor of a highly successful megachurch in San Antonio. He usually avoids politics, beyond calling on his congregation to pray for the nation’s leaders and urging them to vote. But the Donald Trump candidacy has provoked him to issue the following statement:

DECENCY FOR PRESIDENT - February 24, 2016

As the father of three daughters, I reserved the right to interview their dates. Seemed only fair to me. After all, my wife and I’d spent 16 or 17 years feeding them, dressing them, funding braces, and driving them to volleyball tournaments and piano recitals. A five-minute face-to-face with the guy was a fair expectation. I was entrusting the love of my life to him. For the next few hours, she would be dependent upon his ability to drive a car, avoid the bad crowds, and stay sober. I wanted to know if he could do it. I wanted to know if he was decent.

This was my word: “decent.” Did he behave in a decent manner? Would he treat my daughter with kindness and respect? Could he be trusted to bring her home on time? In his language, actions, and decisions, would he be a decent guy?

Decency mattered to me as a dad.

Decency matters to you. We take note of the person who pays their debts. We appreciate the physician who takes time to listen. When the husband honors his wedding vows, when the teacher makes time for the struggling student, when the employee refuses to gossip about her co-worker, when the losing team congratulates the winning team, we can characterize their behavior with the word decent.

We appreciate decency. We applaud decency. We teach decency. We seek to develop decency. Decency matters, right?

Then why isn’t decency doing better in the presidential race?

The leading candidate to be the next leader of the free world would not pass my decency interview. I’d send him away. I’d tell my daughter to stay home. I wouldn’t entrust her to his care.

I don’t know Mr. Trump. But I’ve been chagrined at his antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to the former first lady, Barbara Bush as “mommy,” and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people “stupid,” “loser,” and “dummy.” These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded, and presented.

Such insensitivities wouldn’t even be acceptable even for a middle school student body election. But for the Oval Office? And to do so while brandishing a Bible and boasting of his Christian faith? I’m bewildered, both by his behavior and the public’s support of it.

The stock explanation for his success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, “We are voting with our middle finger.” Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel.

We can only hope, and pray, for a return to decency. Perhaps Mr. Trump will better manage his antics. (Worthy of a prayer, for sure.) Or, perhaps the American public will remember the key role of the president is to be the face of America. When he/she speaks, he/she speaks for us. Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of the president, do we not hope that they behave in a way that is consistent with the status of the office?

As far as I remember, I never turned away one of my daughter’s dates. They weren’t perfect, but they were decent fellows. That was all I could ask.

It seems that we should ask the same.

More on Lucado’s decision to “dis-endorse” Trump can be found in an interview with Christianity Today.

Learning from His Elders

The Many Things Wrong With Donald Trump

From Rick Esenberg, a thorough thrashing administered to the fellow who has eclipsed, in terms of media attention, all the Republican candidates who might have a chance to be president, and might actually make things better:

There’s really no question that Donald Trump’s performance in the GOP debate was childish and boorish. Often he simply blustered and stumbled to barely coherent responses. He bragged about buying politicians and stiffing his creditors. He whined about being treated unfairly and confused common standards of decency with political correctness. He asked us to believe that he can bend foreign governments to his will. Yet he can’t even handle Megyn Kelly.

In the days since then, he’s only made it worse. I understand that Twitter is not exactly a forum for the expression of any thought that is much more than a sentiment, but his feed reads like that of an over fresh high school kid. The man is an embarrassment.

And later:

Some on the left want to say that Trump offers some kind of unveiled conservatism, but that’s preposterous. He is not conservative. He is a big government crony capitalist who has fed at the subsidy trough and advocated for eminent domain abuse. He is a pro-choice (or was, until yesterday afternoon) and a supporter of Obamacare. He has contributed to Hillary Clinton. If anyone in the current GOP field would share Obama’s ambitious view of what a President can and ought to do — who would use his pen and phone rather than the tools the Constitution provides — it is Trump.

Read the whole thing.

Full disclosure: Esenberg is representing us against Marquette’s administration and its attempt to fire us.

Scott Walker Interview

A rather friendly interview, and not some liberal reporter trying to trip him up. That kind will come later. But since Walker has a good ability to stay on message, this is a good example of what he’ll be saying regularly during the campaign season ahead.

"I'd be a candidate who's done both. I've fought the good fights and won those fights consistently for hardworking taxpayers. We've consistently taken on the big challenges...right to work, lowered taxes by $2 billion, property taxes are lower today than when we first started, we passed voter ID...regulatory reform, lawsuit reform, education reform, our school are better today than they were four years ago."

Posted by Scott Walker on Saturday, June 6, 2015

Scott Walker Using Mitt Romney Mailing List

This blogger gets a lot of spam e-mail. That’s true of everybody, but we tend to get more political spam than other people.

Recently, we got two e-mail messages from Scott Walker. Since he’s clearly running for president, this is hardly surprising.

Here is one of the e-mails.

Here is the other.

What is interesting is that both come from the Mitt Romney campaign, apparently using a mailing list left over from 2012.

But clicking on the link sends one to “Friends of Scott Walker.”

Of course, it doesn’t say “Walker for President,” but everybody knows that’s what it is, de facto.

The e-mail says “This message reflects the opinions and representations of Friends of Scott Walker, and is not an endorsement by Mitt Romney.”

Sure. But we will see how many other candidates get to send out fundraising e-mails with the Romney list. At a minimum, this is “endorsement lite.”

This could be a minus for Walker among conservatives who think Romney was too soft a conservative, or a plus as a “semi,” “maybe,” “somewhat” endorsement by an important Republican figure. But it’s early in the election season, any anything one says at this point is little better than speculation.