James Dobson probably won’t vote for this guy either

Our Dr. Dobson sure seems steamed about the mainstream prez picks. Yes, the last time the Focus on the Family founder got so bent out of shape was 1996, when he boycotted Bob Dole and hitched his wagon to the Constitution Party — whose nominee this year has written an essay accusing Dobson of being out of touch with reality, even “perilously shallow.”


On Tuesday the Constitution Party — which claims to be largest third party based on voter registration — kicked off the official launch of its presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin with a family-friendly catered dinner and activities for children at its Grand Rapids, Mich., headquarters.


“Voters all over the country have told me, they’re ‘afraid of Obama and don’t trust McCain,’ ” said Baldwin in an announcement sent from headquarters.


Baldwin is a pastor from Florida and a conservative political newspaper and Internet columnist who beat out perpetual candidate Alan Keyes in a landslide. His candidacy, according to a press release, “is garnering widespread support and is on course to offer voters a viable alternative in the November presidential contest.” In fact, a recent Fox News poll indicates that 47 percent of the respondents said they’d vote for a third-party candidate.


“American voters are likely to deliver a ‘November Surprise’ to the two ‘Big Box’ parties now controlling our government,” Baldwin predicted, saying, “It’s shaping up to be a ‘pendulum swing’ year. American voters have a right to expect their president to secure their borders, support life from conception to its natural end, and never commit American soldiers to a war unless it has been legally declared by Congress and is necessary to protect and defend this nation. I am that candidate, I will be that president.”


Probably not if Dobson has anything to say about it.


Dobson once embraced the Constitution Party — in 1996, when Bob Dole was the GOP nominee. Ultimately, he has said, he cast his presidential vote for Howard Phillips.


Fast forward to April 2007. After Dobson was quoted by US News & World Report saying Fred Thompson wasn’t Christian enough, Baldwin, a former executive director of the Moral Majority in Florida, fired out an essay with the snappy headline "James Dobson just doesn’t get it."

In the strongly-worded essay, Baldwin accused conservative Christian leaders of having having "lost touch with the reality of our nation’s ills and how to cure them." They have, he wrote, "become either perilously shallow and unthinking or myopically focused upon their own success."


"When will conservative Christians wake up? When will they come to understand that when it comes to political office, we are not electing Sunday School teachers? We are electing men and women to do one thing: faithfully discharge their duties to the Constitution of the United States."


Safe to say we can chalk Baldwin off Dobson’s list for this year, along with the rest of ‘em.