{"id":355,"date":"2008-02-17T23:12:17","date_gmt":"2008-02-17T23:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html"},"modified":"2008-02-17T23:12:17","modified_gmt":"2008-02-17T23:12:17","slug":"third-party-plan-resurfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html","title":{"rendered":"Third Party Plan Resurfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mccain8.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/211\/import\/mccain8.jpg\" width=\"125\" \/>The same South Dakota Christian activist who devised a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/10\/01\/us\/politics\/01evangelicals.html\">plan for Christian Right leaders to back a third party<\/a> should Rudy Giuliani have gotten the GOP nomination is reprising it for John McCain. Version 2.0 has substantially less support. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2008\/02\/14\/conservatives-revisit-thi_n_86618.html\">From the AP<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and anti-abortion activist, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that while he could back the Arizona senator over either Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, he made clear that he and others in the evangelical movement are not content with those choices.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;ll be working in other ways to see that we have additional choices as conservatives,&#8221; Fischer said.<br \/>\nHe declined to elaborate, but held out hope that Mike Huckabee might mount an improbable comeback, or that another &#8220;good conservative, Godly, Christian pro-life&#8221; GOP candidate somehow emerge to supplant McCain. The Arizona lawmaker has opposed abortion during his four terms in the Senate.<br \/>\nFischer also volunteered an alternative scenario: supporting the nominee of the fledgling Constitution Party.<br \/>\nAlthough some conservative Christian activists are warming to McCain, Huckabee&#8217;s success with that voting bloc in recent primaries and caucuses shows that much work remains for McCain.<br \/>\nSeveral Christian conservative leaders dismiss renewed talk of a third-party strategy, but any significant loss of conservative Christian voters could spell trouble for McCain in a close general election&#8230;.<br \/>\nLast fall, Fischer called a meeting in Salt Lake City as Christian conservative leaders attended a separate gathering of the ultra-secretive Council for National Policy, an umbrella group for the movement.<br \/>\nMost attendees of Fischer&#8217;s meeting, including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, agreed to support a minor-party candidate if Giuliani emerged as the Republican nominee, according to Dobson and others in attendance. Another group suggested creating a new party, but no consensus emerged, Dobson wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times.<br \/>\nSeveral Christian conservative leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fischer has invited them to a follow-up meeting next month in New Orleans coinciding with another Council for National Policy meeting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The same South Dakota Christian activist who devised a plan for Christian Right leaders to back a third party should Rudy Giuliani have gotten the GOP nomination is reprising it for John McCain. Version 2.0 has substantially less support. From the AP: Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and anti-abortion activist, told The Associated Press&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-mccain"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Third Party Plan Resurfaces - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Third Party Plan Resurfaces - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The same South Dakota Christian activist who devised a plan for Christian Right leaders to back a third party should Rudy Giuliani have gotten the GOP nomination is reprising it for John McCain. Version 2.0 has substantially less support. From the AP: Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and anti-abortion activist, told The Associated Press&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-17T23:12:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/mccain8.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Third Party Plan Resurfaces - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Third Party Plan Resurfaces - God-O-Meter","og_description":"The same South Dakota Christian activist who devised a plan for Christian Right leaders to back a third party should Rudy Giuliani have gotten the GOP nomination is reprising it for John McCain. Version 2.0 has substantially less support. From the AP: Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and anti-abortion activist, told The Associated Press&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2008-02-17T23:12:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/mccain8.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html","name":"Third Party Plan Resurfaces - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/mccain8.jpg","datePublished":"2008-02-17T23:12:17+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-17T23:12:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/mccain8.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/mccain8.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/third-party-plan-resurfaces.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Third Party Plan Resurfaces"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}