"The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is dismayed with comments from Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain. McCain said, in an interview with Beliefnet.com, the United States is a Christian nation and that his Christian faith is of better spiritual guidance than Islam.
Beliefnet.com regularly writes about religious issues of almost every religion and denomination. In this interview Sen. McCain was asked about a Muslim running for President he replied, "I just have to say in all candor that since this Nation was founded primarily on Christian principles…I prefer someone who I know has a solid grounding in my faith." After the interview was posted McCain clarified his remarks saying he would, "vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values."
ADC National Executive Director Kareem Shora said, "Senator McCain has clearly forgotten that our nation's Founding Fathers created a government based on the separation of church and state. They based the US on democracy and pluralism, not on theocracy and religion.""
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This is to comment on Senator McCain's remarks about his personal "faith" and about the "Christian" principles of American democracy, and how he believed that a Muslim candidate could not defend "Christian" principles of democracy. Senator McCain is probably deliberately echoing the assertion (after the November 2006 elections) by Republican Representative Vergil Goode from a western district in Virginia that Muslims should not be elected to Congress. Goode's remarks were in response to the election in November 2006 of Democratic Representative Ellis from Minnesota who had previously converted to Islam and who is also an African-American. Ellis's race is probably the real reason behind Goode's attack on Muslims in Congress and thus behind McCain's assertion that a Muslim candidate could not defend "Christian" principles of democracy. In the American South, for white Southern racists, the Republican theme of "Christian values" is all too frequently code-language indicating support for white racism. This is relevant to McCain's remarks, because in making his defense of the "Christian" principles of American government he is probably trying to reestablish his "Caucasian credentials" with white Republican voters in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary in February or March of 2008. In 2000, McCain lost the South Carolina Republican primary in part because his Republican rivals spread the rumor that his adopted Bangladeshi (I think?) daughter was actually his illegitimate child, and even the rumor of McCain's having fathered a non-Caucasian child unnerved enough white Republicans in South Carolina that McCain lost the primary. In making his comments about his personal "faith" and "Christian" political principles, McCain wants to preempt South Carolinians' uncertainty about his support for white racism, and thereby not repeat his loss of 2000. It stinks, but after the Republican loss of the White House in 1992, Republican candidates during the primary season have been therapists for white Southern racial anxieties, and no Republican can be nominated without winning the South Carolina primary.
Nixon/Reagan-style Republicanism, even though it strenuously pandered to white racism, actually did not identity with white identity politics. Nixonian and Reagan-style Republicans were not and are not actually concerned with preserving a specifically European identity in the U.S., however much they may pander to white racial/cultural anxiety during electoral campaigns. Despite his electoral tactics, Reagan actually did view the GOP as a "big tent," inclusion in which was based on shared social, economic, and political principles, but not actually on racial/cultural identity. After the GOP loss of the White House in 1992, Republicans advocating a "big tent" quickly lost ground to "Culture War" advocates who very explicitly pursue the politics of exclusion, to the point that between 1994 and 1998, Republican Representative Livingston of Louisiana announced that the GOP was explicitly NOT a big tent but a ship going in a certain direction, which would admit only certain passengers, and is effectively captained by white Southerners. This morally stinks, and is politically suicidal, but that's where the GOP is today. If the GOP doesn't get away from being the White Man's Party, it's going to go the way of the Federalist Party, and probably soon after 2008.
But that's probably why McCain was making his "Christian" comments. Note that he backtracked from tnose comments shortly afterwards. The GOP candidates are pathetic.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to show what motivated McCain's remarks.
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