I recall one of the moderate candidates, Winifred Moore, back in the day of the original Conservative Resurgence having a campaign that included airport stops with news interviews. The idea was, one supposes, to get on television news or in print. Moore was quite the avuncular preacher with homespun stories but rather unsuited for this type of campaigning. He looked like he’d rather be doing anything but what he was doing but then running against Adrian Rogers and Charles Stanley was an unenviable task.
My youthful observations back in that day were that,
- Adrian Rogers didn’t need to campaign because he was such a stellar preacher.
- Paige Patterson was particularly well-suited for the political/electoral CR rallies where he would be found.
- The Gatlinburg Gang (look it up) didn’t do much of anything well but grumble and gripe about the cons. (and one of the Shermans, can’t recall which, when asked about losing all those elections said something like, “I know math.” True to form.)
Fast forward to the age of Twitter.
- Randy Adams incessantly touts his roll call of things that characterize the ugly underbelly of the SBC. No chance, unfortunately, to win anything besides the title of the most aggressive candidate in SBC history.
- Ed Litton is peripatetic, he’s everywhere holding meet-and-greets. Come to my area and I’ll show up at one. Hey, Ed, can you get a publicity photo other than the squinting, crossed arms one? Did you eat a persimmon by mistake?
- Mike Stone is better off the less he tweets. He’s got a whole org doing his campaigning, sometimes not so well.
- Al Mohler, could manage to lose this election even though he has more words vibrating around the atmosphere than any Southern Baptist living or dead. How brilliant is it to pick a slave proponent to quote on Mother’s Day of all days?
I have no idea how this election will go…but I’ll be in Nashville to strike a blow for truth, justice, and the SBC way.
And, how many registered messengers? 12k, 15k?
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Preview: On May 24th, I’ll provide the world’s best illustration of one possible future of the Grand Old SBC.
