On June 14th, 2010, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, an agnostic, said in an interview with Andy Ferguson of The Weekly Standard: 

… the next president, whoever he is, “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until the economic issues are resolved. 

Little did Governor Daniels know that social issues would soon rival, if not overshadow economic issues, in the eye of the American public.

Over the last several days, the buzz around the water coolers in America has been about:

The Ground Zero mosque. Gay marriage in California. The president’s religion. 

Granted, these issues have nothing  to do with the economy.  Obama’s failed economic policy has dominated the political scene in 2010 and caused a panic among incumbents up for re-election in November.   However, with a little over two months to go until the midterm elections, the three aforementioned social concerns have created a hurricane of political buzz,with the tornadoes of illegal immigration and health care swirling within the atmosphere. 

The all-knowing pundits (just ask them) say the economy is still the number one issue and that politicians need to stay away from the sticky issues revolving around morality, ethics, and, God forbid, religion, or else they will drive away independent voters who, the pundits assume, vote with their wallets.

Evidently, their parents never told these all-knowing pundits what assuming does.

In Florida, site of  primary elections this Tuesday, the top Republican candidates for governor are both echoing each other’s outrage over the Islamic center proposed near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. 

Billionaire Rick Scott immediately put out a campaign ad after President Obama launched the New York issue into the national spotlight by saying the developers had the right to build there. 

Scott’s campaign ad, to the backdrop of moody guitar music, declared that Obama was “wrong” and the mosque should not be erected “just yards” from where “Muslim fanatics murdered thousands of innocent Americans.” 

Opponent Bill McCollum, Florida’s attorney general, repeated the outrage: 

We’re still at war with Al Qaeda. They see this as a sign of weakness.  This is not just an insult to the families of the victims of September 11. It’s also a problem for our soldiers that are still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

In Missouri, GOP Rep. Roy Blunt’s Senate campaign posted a web video that had audio of Democratic opponent Robin Carnahan saying New Yorkers should decide the mosque issue for themselves — with a photo in the background of smoldering World Trade Center rubble.  Blunt eventually pulled the ad, but Carnahan said it went too far. 

Senate Majority Leader “Dinghy” Harry Reid, who faces a conservative challenge from Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, shocked  Washington by coming out against the mosque Monday. 

He had to protect his phony baloney job.

Political candidates in states thousands of miles from Ground Zero are publically expressing their opinions on the mosque debate. The hottest part of this political firestorm is in New York, where Republicans are blasting Democrats who have either sided with the proposed center or kept their mouth shut, trying to fly below the radar.

Rick Lazio, challenger to Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in the general election, has released an ad through the New York State Conservative Party slamming Cuomo for defending the Cordoba Initiative.

In the ad, Rubio says:

New Yorkers have been through enough.  Andrew Cuomo is very, very wrong. 

Republicans think that they have found a political hot button issue.   A Fox News poll released last Friday found 64 percent of voters think it’s wrong to put a mosque near Ground Zero. 

However, there are Republicans who seem to be preaching Moderation.  Oh, squish.   New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie has warned lawmakers against getting too caught up in the debate.  Republican strategist Kevin Madden, former spokesman for ex-presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Has anybody heard where he stands on the issue, by the way?), said candidates should beware the mosque:

What happens is candidates run the risk of looking like they are focusing on the trivial at the expense of the urgent — the urgent being the economy.

Trivial?  Not according to other Republican candidates.

According to Georgia Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey, the recent debate over whether the 14th amendment should be altered so that children of illegal immigrants are not granted automatic citizenship will be a “huge issue” come November. 

Hearkening back to the campaign of 2004, gay marriage was also tossed into the campaign season mix when a federal judge earlier this month ruled that California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The decision is being appealed. 

Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman on Friday seized the opportunity to blast California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown, her Democratic opponent, for not defending the law in court. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, she promised to defend the law as governor. 

The hottest social issue of the week was a poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center which showed voters’ views on the president’s religion are either murkier, or possibly clearer, than ever.  The poll showed 18 percent of Americans believe the president, who claims to be a practicing Christian, is a Muslim — that’s up from 11 percent in March 2009.  A third  identified him as a Christian and 43 percent said they don’t know what religion the president practices. 

 Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Larry Sabato, told Fox News that in light of the numbers the White House will probably be more “persistent” in letting reporters know when he’s attending services or consulting with pastors. He said that may help “moderate” the false impression about his religion. 

It has been very interesting this week to observe the MSM, the Progressives, and the Northeast Moderates all trying to spin these social issues that are so upsetting to the American public.  Just as Beltway Republicans have been trying to steer their party away from Reagan Conservatism, saying that it was a failed model, so are these elements in our society trying to tell the American people that right and wrong are relative things, and that traditional American values are passe’.

Reality check, people:  75 % of Americans proclaim their Christianity.  The overwhelming majority of Americans were raised with traditional values.  They believe in the concept of right and wrong.  They have been working hard all of their lives and now, a bunch of clowns in Washington are trying to tell them that they need to give more of their money to them, just so this Regime can destroy what it took over 200 years to build.  At the same time, they see a president, currently on his 6th vacation of the year, who has said that we no longer consider ourselves a Christian nation and that the Muslim call to prayer is one of “the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset”.  Not only that, but he can recite the Call to Prayer in perfect Arabic.  Funny, I’ve never heard him recite The Lord’s Prayer.  What are Americans supposed to believe about this man?

Yes.  We are all struggling to survive due to the worst economic policy in the history of America.  However, strictly campaigning on the issue of economics alone, with no ethical and moral stance to back it up, will not win an election for the Republicans.  After all, Mussolini made the trains run on time.