Pam found the link to this article from LA Times in which Rev.Jerry Falwell compares Hillary Clinton with the Devil:
“I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate,” Falwell said, according to the recording. “She has $300 million so far. But I hope she’s the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton.”
Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: “If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.”
At that moment in the recording, Falwell’s voice is drowned out by hoots of approval. But two in attendance, including a Falwell staff member, confirmed that Falwell said that even Lucifer, the fallen angel synonymous with Satan in Christian theology, would not mobilize his followers as much as the New York senator and former first lady would.
One critic who has been observing the conference said Saturday that Falwell’s words offered a rare glimpse into how religious conservative leaders were planning to inflame opposition to the Democrats with below-the-radar messages that are often more scorching than the ones showing up in public.
“He was calling Hillary Clinton a demonic figure and openly arguing that God is a Republican,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “It’s hard to know whether people thought he was joking or serious, but once you start using religious imagery and invoking a politician in this way, it’s not funny. A lot of people who listen to him do think that she’s a dark force of evil in America.”
Lukewarm handwaiving afterwards does not mean that he did not really mean it, nor that his followers do not really believe it. Everyone who has read The Wimp Factor and Great Limbaugh Con understands how Hillary got turned into a Devil, something that has been hammered since 1992 and is now so deeply ingrained in the national psyche, that even those of us who personally like Hillary realize that she cannot possibly win. She is a personification of Evil for just too many Americans.
On the other hand, Sara Robinson reports that rural voters, religious fundamentalists aside, are not as squarely in the Republican field as previously believed. Thus, Democratic candidates this November can make serious inroads by addressing issues important to rural voters. And the same goes for presidential candidates two years from now.