We’ve been hearing for years that Karl Rove is absolutely convinced that 4 million Christian evangelicals, who should have backed Bush in 2000, stayed home. The number has always been suspect — Rove has never disclosed his sources or explained his methodology — but even if we accept it at face value, there’s reason to believe it may get worse this year.
With their ardent, Bible-based opposition to abortion and gay marriage, evangelical Christians are a key target of the massive Republican get-out-the-vote drive heading into next week’s election. Party leaders consider conservative Christians to be as near a lock for President Bush as any group can be.
But GOP strategists might want to have a chat with Tim Moore, an evangelical who teaches civics at a traditional Christian school near Milwaukee. He shares Bush’s religious convictions, but says the president has lost his vote because of tax cuts for the wealthy and the administration’s shifting rationales for invading Iraq.
“There’s no way I’m going for Bush. That much I know,” said Moore, 46. He remains undecided between Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and a third-party candidate.
Moore reflects a potential problem for Bush in Wisconsin and other closely contested states, where the GOP and conservative groups have invested heavily in turning out a record conservative Christian vote through mailings, voter guides, targeted phone calls and announcements by prominent evangelists such as Jerry Falwell and James Dobson aired on religious radio stations.
It’s an interesting phenomenon. Bush assumed he could lock up his evangelical base with an emphasis on a “culture of life,” opposition to stem-cell research, and support for a constitutional amendment on gay marriage. He was wrong. Many of these voters a) have real-life concerns that go beyond “culture war” issues, including employment, health care, the debacle in Iraq, and the environment; and b) aren’t all that impressed with Bush’s alleged compassion.
Some, such as Wendy Skroch, a 51-year-old mother of three who prays regularly at the evangelical Elmbrook Church in this heavily Republican Milwaukee suburb, blame Bush for failing to fix a “broken” healthcare system and for “selling off the environment to the highest bidder.”
Others are like Joe Urcavich, pastor of the nondenominational evangelical Green Bay Community Church, where more than 2,000 people worship each Sunday. He is undecided, troubled by the bloodshed in the Middle East.
“It’s hard for me to say that Christians should be marching against abortion and carrying signs, and then turn around and giving a pep rally for the war in Iraq without even contemplating that hundreds and hundreds of people are being killed on a regular basis over there,” Urcavich said.
“I’m very antiabortion, but the reality is the right to life encompasses a much broader field than just abortion,” he added. “If I’m a proponent of life, I have to think about the consequences of not providing prescription drugs to seniors or sending young men off to war.”
Specific data is hard to come by at this point, but a Pew Research Center poll showed 70% of self-identified evangelicals or born-again Christians planned to vote for the president, down from 74% in the same survey three weeks earlier. Sure, seven-in-10 sounds like overwhelming support, but the poll data suggests just under a third of evangelicals either aren’t backing Bush or aren’t sure. Moreover, since the Bush campaign had been counting on support between 80% and 90%, this could have a significant impact on the campaign.
There’s just something hilarious about the idea of Bush coming up short on Election Day because his support from evangelicals wasn’t strong enough. Of all the constituencies you’d expect to have to worry about, this hardly seems like one of them.