This rent-a-minister thing is getting way, way out of hand. CORE, the ComEd front group, has had ministers advocating on the utility’s behalf for months, bringing them to Springfield for marches and rallies. The governor, who knows a good game when he sees it, has attempted to rally ministers to his health care cause. [Added: As a commenter notes below, Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan also has a bunch of ministers fronting for his 7 percent assessment cap proposal.]
And now the two sides in the ongoing dispute over how AT&T should get into the cable marketplace have trotted out their men and women of the cloth. Yesterday was just plain goofy…
The Rev. James Demus, at a rally to support cable TV legislation, tried to light his cable bill on fire.
But on a windy Tuesday morning at the downtown Thompson Center, he couldn’t get it to light. Eventually he held his bill below the podium until he could get a tiny flame going, and then held it up for the cameras. The wind promptly blew it out.
But Demus, co-director of the Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide, still had plenty to say as he, several other black ministers and a dozen supporters called for passage of a cable deregulation bill that would give AT&T easier entry into the cable market.
“The Lord has given hope to Illinois consumers,” Demus said. “It is House Bill 1500.” […]
A different group of black ministers, working with a group called Keep TV Local, tried to rally opposition to the bill several weeks ago, saying the new bill allows new providers such as AT&T to ignore poorer communities.
[Emphasis added.]
Unreal. I doubt this works very well with legislators and just makes the ministers look like shills.