Dobson will never support a McCain nomination

This story came out on Super Duper Pooper Scooper Tuesday, but the story slipped through the cracks due to all the other insane campaign coverage of that day. But I still think it has some importance here regarding the GOP presidential politics. From Talking Points Memo:

With John McCain on the verge of winning the Republican nomination, the once-complacent anti-McCain forces on the right are getting louder than ever. This morning, James Dobson released a statement to Laura Ingraham's radio show, declaring that under no circumstances would he support McCain in the general election — a potential blow to the Arizona senator, since it could discourage turnout among some evangelical voters.

Now here is Dobson's statement as read by Laura Ingraham on her radio show. From YouTube:



And finally, I want to include this two-part YouTube video of an exclusive Dobson interview by KLRA's Dennis Prager on February 5th, 2008. Here is Part One:



And here is Part Two:



On the Dennis Prager Show, Dobson has admitted that he will not support John McCain, Mitt Romney, or even Mike Huckabee. In other words, there are no Republican presidential candidates that support the Religious Right's ideology, as according to Dobson. Dobson also claims that he would vote for Mitt Romney, if Romney was the GOP nominee. Then again, Dobson was pretty sure that Romney would never become the GOP nominee--not when McCain had a strong lead going into Super Tuesday. I suspect that Dobson's statement of voting for Romney was a subtle message to his evangelical voters to hopefully vote for Romney on Super Tuesday, and keep him in the race against McCain.

But all that is really moot points here. Mike Huckabee won the Deep South states with the evangelical vote, John McCain won the big states of New York and California, and Mitt Romney got nothing. Mitt Romney is out of the race. So whatever Dobson was trying to say in his statement, and on the Dennis Prager Show, went nowhere. John McCain is now the GOP front-runner, and Dobson is stuck with the one presidential candidate that he despises. Dobson is stuck with a situation of either voting for the lesser of two evils in John McCain, or have a Democratic administration of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama take the Oval Office, come January 2009. Dobson's moral conscious refuses him to vote for any presidential candidate. I wonder how many evangelicals will also agree with Dobson, and stay home rather than vote for McCain in the general election. This brings up a huge problem for John McCain--he is going to need those evangelical votes if he is to win the general election. He is going to need to find some way to unite this fractured Republican Party, where the evangelicals hate him, the hard-core conservatives distrust him, and the GOP elites will not support him. Even more, McCain has to unify this fractured GOP during a time when the current Republican president is sitting on 30 percent approval ratings, a war that a majority of Americans want out, and an economy that is heading towards a recession. It is almost an impossible task for this supposed "Straight Talk Express" senator.

We'll soon see what happens.