on the best choice of a bad lot?

Fred Thompson appears set to announce his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States of America. While not an American citizen, I am married to one and happen to be the father of five of them. As a Canadian, the politics of the United States are very important to us. One of our former prime ministers (not one of my favorites) described our nervous relationship with the USA as 'like being in bed with an elephant ... its fine as long as the elephant doesn't roll over'.

Of the Republican candidates for president Fred Thompson has a lot of attractive qualities. He seems to best embody the political principles that I believe in. But today I ran across an article that didn't inspire a lot of confidence. Thompson is a lawyer [I suppose that by itself is not a disqualification...] who also has been involved in various Hollywood productions as an actor. The article, "Old girlfriends cast their vote for Thompson" comes from the Sunday Times, a product of the Times of London, I think. Thompson's marital history is the subject of the article, including interviews with several girlfriends from his days between his divorce of his first wife (after 26 years) and his marriage to his second wife, a woman 24 years his junior.

One of his former girlfriends, Georgette Mosbacher, a Republican fundraiser, had this comment on Thompson's character:

"It says a lot about his character that his ex-wife and ex-girlfriends think he is fabulous," said Mosbacher. "Character is important in a president."

Womanizing is a sign of character if all your former women think you are fabulous?

What are we to do? Every one of the other major Republican candidates have major problems for Christians to give their support. Giuliani is far to the left on too many social issues. Romney is a Mormon. McCain is McCain, an unprincipled maverick who masquerades as a conservative but is really driven by self rather than ideology. Thompson, on the other hand has generally espoused conservative political philosophies during his previous time in office (though his record is not as strong as one might like). Are his marital issues a deal-breaker for Christians?

This particular story seems to fit the strategy of getting the bad news out early so the public can get used to it by the time voting day comes. We are about to be manipulated once again.

I am afraid that the coming election will be one of those 'hold your nose and vote' situations for conservative Christians. There are no really great candidates out there, but there are some truly awful ones. Christian voters may be voting against several bad choices in order to select the lesser of evils.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3