This weekend, in anticipation of the book launch of Dispatches from the Religious Left, I am running a series on a few selected essays from the book.  Earlier today, I posted my review of PastorDan's essay on the role of the Religious Left.  This post is about an essay by Rev. Debra Haffner and Timothy Palmer: "Towards a theology of sexual justice."

Sexual justice, as defined by this essay, is quite broad:

Indeed, the full scope of sexual justice embraces anyone who is concerned with gender equality, reproductive rights and health care, and the right to privacy, not to mention education, equality of opportunity and the dignity of all persons.

These issues are far too important to far too many people to sweep under the rug in seeking the support of an ever-elusive "Religious Center", as Jim Wallis argues.  So how is the Religious Left to support sexual justice?

Here are today's numbers:

Today's numbers, which are based on interviews conducted entirely after the presidential debate on Tuesday, show Barack Obama with his largest ever lead over John McCain, with Obama hitting 50 percent in all four daily tracking polls for the first time ever. Since the day before the debate, Obama's average has increased 1 1/2 percentage points while McCain's average has fallen a full percentage point, suggesting that not only was McCain unable to shift momentum away from Obama and towards himself, he wasn't even able to stop the growth in Obama's lead.

Unfortunately, election day isn't today, and these tracking polls are more reflective of the current state of the race than they are predictive of where the race will be in three and a half weeks. Nevertheless, it is clear that McCain is going to have to do something if he wants the trajectory of this race to change.

You people have been busy this week!  Thanks again to those diligent few who help make the rescue possible.  Enjoy.

• CA-SD-33, Please help Defeat a Prop 8 Supporter! (Ellinorianne)
• Dem4life ponders FDR and A Very Simple Economic Plan.
• USArmyParatrooper channels The Jetsons to find that John McCain is Destroying His Legacy.
• Someone's forwarding nasty email, and Joe has their number in FL-25: What a Week for Joe Garcia!
• Jeff Merkley: Let's Send A True Blue Democrat To The Senate! (Turkana)
• From Dracomicron, a diary title Franken himself wishes he had written: MN-Sen: Comedian Beating Well-Dressed Jerk.
• In desperation, says The Media Consortium, they are Cranking Up the Slime Machine.
• Project Vote is Changing the Game: Voter Registration Drives Reshape the American Electorate.
• NeciVelez: My Response to David Brooks in the NYT.
• Fighting for policy that reflects our values in The Opportunity Agenda's Framing to Win: Health Care is "a Right for Every American."
• Psychodrew ponders the future of equality in Good News for Connecticut, But...
• GA-SEN: Republican's Re-election Prospects Down-Graded. (andrewalker08)
• Democracy is for us all, says Mike Connery in 20/20, John Stossel To Run Hatchet Piece on Young Voter Engagement.

My copy of Dispatches from the Religious Left arrived yesterday and, since the book launch is next week, I thought I'd crack it open and review some of the essays this weekend.  The book is divided in three parts: "Envisioning a more politically dynamic Religious Left", "Memos on hot button issues", and "Getting from here to there".  So my plan is to review one essay from each chapter in the next couple of days.

First up is "Religious Left: Changing the Script", by Daniel Schultz, better known to many blog readers as Pastor Dan of Street Prophets.

PastorDan's essay is characteristically blunt and honest.  It opens with a none-too-subtle reproach to Religious Leftists: "What the Religious Left is doing is not working!".

David Dayen has some breaking news over at Calitics. Turns out Tom McClintock, carpetbagger opponent of Democratic candidate Lt. Col. Charlie Brown in CA-04 who is currently a State Senator in a district that runs from the LA suburbs to Santa Barbara County, is running for congress in a district hundreds of miles away up in the northeast corner of the state and has run for two previous statewide offices unsuccessfully including for governor in the 2003 recall, was actually endorsed for governor 5 years ago by none other than the Ku Klux Klan. Check out this endorsement:

Dateline: September 27, 2003

Ku Klux Klan Announces support for Tom McClintock

The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) have announced their full support for Tom
McClintock's bid for the governorship of California. Their support is announced in what they term "the
lesser of all evil candidates."

When interviewed, Mr. Chris Johnson (Grand Dragon or State Director of the IKA's California chapter) had this to say regarding the announcement, "While Mr. McClintock is not the perfect candidate for California Governor, we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates. We are in congruence with his stand on illegal aliens infecting our land and his courage in standing up to the invasion." Mr. Johnson went on to say that, "Mr. McClintock echoes our anti-abortion stand, and our opposition to oppressive taxation."

Haha. Well, this isn't a terribly enthusiastic endorsement, is it? But you gotta love their reasoning behind settling on McClintock: "we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates." Pretty much says it all.

CA-04 is a really red district with a PVI of R+11. Charlie almost took corrupt congressman John Doolittle out last cycle but lost by a mere 3%. Charlie is one of several great 2nd chance candidates we have this year.

At first, the revelation that Doolittle would be retiring after this term was a disappointing turn of events but Brown I think lucked out by getting McClintock, perrenial candidate for whatever office opens up (and in fact he has accounts for two runs for office in 2010 still open) as his opponent. Sure he has name recognition but what he's best known for is being a loser. Also, over these past two cycles Charlie has made a credible case for himself as a Democrat in a red district, so much so that the latest Research 2000/DKos poll has him leading McClintock by 5.

I told my Republican uncle about the poll last night and he was shocked. He lives up in CA-04 and he's been telling me since 06 how Charlie has no shot because the 4th is so reliably red that anyone with an R next to his name will win. It's looking as though he may just be proven wrong.

Let's give Charlie some love so McClintock can be free to focus on his 2010 run for Board of Equalization.

There's a lot of kerfuffle over ACORN this week - but one distinction needs to be made as we have conversations with out friends, family, and neighbors this weekend: the voter registration issues involving ACORN are not the same as voter fraud itself. In Las Vegas, for example, reports surfaced that ACORN submitted voter registrations listing the names of the Dallas Cowboys.

But that doesn't mean someone's going to voting fraudulently even if the right-wing media implies so. It just means there may be faulty registrations that are never touched. Contrary to the implication, the Dallas Cowboys will not be voting in Clark County.

Ari at Oxdown sees a bigger picture:

This campaign is about race, plane and simple. ACORN is helping minorities to vote -- and guess what, that scares Republicans. Politically they fear losing elections, but this is about something much deeper.

Yesterday at Open Left, Chris Bowers had this advice for the opposition in his very upbeat presidential forecast:

When it comes to offering concern troll advice to McCain and Republicans, I would recommend shutting down all paid media, and firing all campaign staff. McCain should take his remaining money, and distribute it to the RNC, NRCC and NRSC. Target a few close House and Senate seats to try and limit the damage, but otherwise save money for 2010 and 2012. When you are beaten, it is probably better to  withdraw, save what troops and resources you can, but live to fight another day.

Crooked Timber reported today on the latest from the rumor mill:

So I hear (via a prominent member of the sane Republican faction) that the word on the right side of the street is that the Republican National Committee is about to pull the plug on its joint ads with the McCain campaign, and devote its resources instead to trying to save a couple of the senators who are at serious risk of losing their seats.

On one level, this strategy makes the most sense for the RNC. McCain is looking more and more unlikely to win 270 electoral votes, so helping him is probably not the best use of resources.

On the other hand, it would be devastating to Republican morale for the media to start reporting that the RNC had given up on McCain. I suspect that would depress GOP turnout in a lot of states, perhaps putting more House seats in play even as the RNC blankets the airwaves in behalf of a few vulnerable senators.

Use this as a thread to discuss anything related to campaign advertising by candidates or outside groups.

Here in Iowa, Republican incumbent Tom Latham is running lots of tv and radio ads in the fourth district (D+0), while 10 worst list honoree Steve King is not up on tv or radio and is barely campaigning in the fifth district (R+8). We could pick up both of these seats if expectations of an Obama landslide depress Republican turnout. (Today SUSA released yet another Iowa poll showing Obama above 50 percent and leading McCain by more than 10 points.)

Big gains over the last two days by Obama, by my tracking, Obama now leads by 6.2 percent, a 49.2 - 43 margin; and I have him slated to win anywhere from 50.5 - 52.6 percent of the vote, with a 2 - 4.2 percent margin over McCain, at the moment.

McCain is letting it all hang out now:

This appears still aimed at McCain supporters, and I've not seen any polling that the Ayers-ACORN attack on Obama is perceived as relevancy to voters that are up for grabs. But it looks like that McCain is going the length with the attack.

The corp. media is saying that Obama is going 'safe' mode: