I'm really trying...

...but I just can't seem to keep the spirit of holiday charity going. Once again, I'm compelled to tell the truth about Dr. Dean.

There's been a lot of buzz lately about the very secular nature of the Dean campaign to date, and how that might prove to be a handicap in the general election, especially in the south and the midwest. The Boston Globe reports that Dean is reassuring voters about his religious conviction.

"Presidential contender Howard B. Dean, who has said little about religion while campaigning except to emphasize the separation of church and state, described himself in an interview with the Globe as a committed believer in Jesus Christ and said he expects to increasingly include references to Jesus and God in his speeches as he stumps in the South."

(my emphasis)

So, the 'straight talkin' guy' is making a regional rearrangement of message, and that's supposed to reassure us of his conviction. OK, then.

Or maybe the candidate of the people is just listening to the polls. As the Globe piece notes "An ABC/Washington Post poll released this week showed that 46 percent of Southerners said a president should rely on his religious beliefs in making policy decisions, compared with 40 percent nationwide and 28 percent in the East. The South is a potential problem area for Dean's campaign for the Democratic nomination..."

I have no basis to question the sincerity of Howard Dean's religious conviction, and I'm not among those who thinks that conviction is particularly relevant to his Presidential qualifications. I continue, though, to be concerned about his political hypocrisy and pattern of pandering. Adopting various approaches to piety for the benefit of different regional audiences is likely to cause problems in every region. In these days of 24 hour national media scrutiny you just can't get away with that kind of duplicity.

I think Jeff Jarvis at the Buzz Machine gets it right on this one.

"This may be the religious equivalent of his Confederate-flag-on-the-back-of-pickups remark. He may as well have said he wants to appeal to the voters who have have fish stickers on the back of their Chevys."