Vice Presidential pretendee/nominee Sarah Palin credits and praises a Kenyan Minister named Thomas Muthee with helping her to achieve the Alaskan governorship through prayer. It turns out the Muthee also hunts down witches and makes Rev. John Hagee, to say nothing of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., look positively normal. At a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God on June 8 this year, Palin described how Muthee had laid his hands on her:

“As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he’s so bold. And he was praying “Lord make a way, Lord make a way. And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not “oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor,” no, he just prayed for it. He said “Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what happened.”

She might also have enlisted him in some good old witchhunting. After founding the Prayer Cave in 1989 in Kiambu, Kenya, Muthee reportedly says that he spoke with God and was called to the United States where he would be embraced by Palin and her church. While in Kenya, he says that he discovered that the community was inundated by witchcraft: “We prayed, we fasted, the Lord showed us a spirit of witchcraft resting over the place.”

He even identified one witch known as Mama Jane, who ran a competing “divination” center called the Emmanuel Clinic. He declared that she was responsible for a rash of car accidents and led a crusade against her — a movement that would trigger calls for her to be stoned to death. She was eventually arrested and then fled the area.

It is certainly an example of “small town values” but perhaps not the quite type that the campaign is looking for. On the other hand, something like 80% of U.S. voters say they believe in Angels. So it’s only a quick hop, skip and a jump to witches, I suppose. Halloween is right around the corner…and let’s not forget that “witches” and “witchcraft” was an early way of the monotheists to crack down on…and mass murder, the Old Folk Ways, and that many of these were strong women, and faeries…