Monday, December 17, 2007

Lieberman endorses McCain

John McCain got a needed campaign boost with a Joe Lieberman endorsement, another from the Boston Globe, and a third from the DeMoines register.

McCain has been lagging in the polls despite his 2000 victory over GW Bush in the New Hampshire primary.

Meanwhile Barack Obama, now the Democratic frontrunner, and Mitt Romney are talking religion and politics more than they'd probably like to. Obama is defending himself against what appear to be Clinton campaign suggestions challenging his Christian roots, while Romney was heavily blasted by NBC's Tim Russert for his long support of questionable Mormon church policies.

Although negative attacks are just political business as usual, I'm disappointed that journalists like Russert and TV news are so quickly picking up and running with these irrelevancies. Religion is relevant to the character debate, and in the case of Huckabee, a minister, it would be good to clarify some allegiances, but I think suggestions that people can't separate religion and state are questionable in the case of all these candidates. Far more relevant are questions about governance and policy. Is it too much to expect more about that?