God is joking with Republican presidential candidates

I don't believe in the traditional Judeo-Christian God. However, if I'm wrong and the Big Dude Upstairs really does exist, I like his sense of humor.

(Hopefully he'll give me a smiling high-five when I reach the Pearly Gates and say, "Oops. What a surprise!)

Anyway, some cosmic jokester seems to be having a good time with Republican presidential candidates Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. Each of them believes that God is on his/her side, urging on their candidacies.

Cain says that God convinced him to run for president. 

“I prayed and prayed and prayed. I’m a man of faith, I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I’d ever done before in my life. And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. ‘You’ve got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?’ ” Cain told a crowd of more than 100 people at the Young Republican National Federation, an event hosted by the Georgia Young Republicans at the Westin Peachtree Plaza.

But Bachmann already had gotten a sense from God that she should run for political office, and there's no higher office than the presidency.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., says that she prayed to God about whether or not to run for political office and that those prayers provided her with a "sense from God" of "assurance about the direction" she was taking.

With Perry, God spoke to him through his wife -- which makes perfect sense to me, given the dictates from on high my own wife regularly communicates. (Such as "Thou shalt get rid of your crap in the garage.")

Anita Perry said that God had called her husband to run for president and likened the decision to encountering “a burning bush.” She said that God was testing Perry with his current difficulties.

Likewise, Rick Santorum's wife is serving as a channel for the divine will.

Yes, God has told Rick Santorum to run for president. Just ask his wife, who said last month, “We believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants.”

The good news for Democrats in all this is that God also was behind Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidancy in 2008. 

Sarah Palin believed that Sen. John McCain chose her to be his running mate in 2008 because of "God's plan," according to a top political strategist in the Arizona Republican's campaign.

God, I like how you're screwing around with all these Republicans. It sure looks like you're divinely ticked off at them for being so holier-than-thou sanctimonious, while ignoring your entreaties to help the poor, wage peace, and such.

After all, Jesus is a liberal, so God must be one too.

Comments

[Dan]

This always annoys the hell outta me too, and I say this as a conservative republican deist. I just love it when every candidate trots out this divine mandate that somehow they - through days and nights of sweaty, feverish prayer - have been given holy endorsement as God's hand-picked and anointed voice and righteous might incarnate on earth, and should rule over the lives of other people, since God is too damn busy to do it himself. Who are they fooling? Do they really think God picks winners in politics any more than he picks winners in high school football games when both teams say a prayer before the kick-off? I also love it when an entrenched politician says they are "called" to service, as if somehow they didn't really want it, but feel obligated not to piss off the universe. Their love of power has NOTHING to do with their answering the call, and fighting like dogs to keep it.

[Willie R]

I am pretty sure that if you confronted all of the conservative religious candidates with the fact that they all claim to possess a divine mandate, they would all reply with a version of Crabtree's Bludgeon, which states: "no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated".

[DJ]

The problem with each of your arguments (Brian, Dan, and Willie R) is that none of the candidates appears to be saying they believe God has chosen them to be president – only that they’ve been called to run – and beyond that God’s will be done. Maybe God called on each of them to run for no other reason than to vet and strengthen the position of the ultimate candidate – or maybe to highlight the superiority of the current resident of the White House – so that the voters can make an informed choice. Both teams may say a prayer before kickoff, but I’ve never heard a team ask God for the win. If you have and didn’t ask for the coach’s resignation, the shortcoming is yours.