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Palin preaches to the choir

Christianity Today September 10, 2008

Sarah Palin may possess the evangelical vernacular John McCain needs to win in November, Michael Lindsay argues over on Beliefnet.

“Why would a person seeking the country’s second most powerful office talk about governing with a ‘servant’s heart,’ and more importantly, why would she repeat such an odd phrase in the biggest speech of her life? Quite simply, it is one of her main assignments–to mobilize fellow evangelicals for the religiously unmusical John McCain.”

Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University, argues that when Palin referred to governing with a “servant’s heart,” the phrase resonated with millions of evangelicals who have heard that phrase all of their lives.

“When John McCain began his bid for the Oval Office, observers thought he didn’t have a prayer of winning their support. With this ‘Hail Mary pass’ of enlisting the Alaskan governor as his running mate, John McCain’s political savior may just turn out to be a pit bull with lipstick.”

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