John Kerry used last night’s debates, as effectively as anyone I’ve ever seen, to target two specific groups of voters: Catholics and women. It wasn’t particularly subtle, but it was very effective.
Catholic voters are one of the key “swing constituencies” this election, and several polls show them split pretty much down the middle. Kerry’s goal was to a) remind them that he’s Catholic; b) explain why his faith is important to him; and c) downplay fears that he’s a secularist by going toe-to-toe with Bush on matters of faith. Kerry did all three last night.
I thought one of Kerry’s strongest moments of all of the debates came in response to a question about some archbishops coming out against him. After acknowledging his respect for their concerns, Kerry said:
“I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I know that throughout my life this has made a difference to me. And as President Kennedy said when he ran for president, he said, ‘I’m not running to be a Catholic president. I’m running to be a president who happens to be Catholic.’
“My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There’s a great passage of the Bible that says, ‘What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead.’ And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people.
“That’s why I fight against poverty. That’s why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That’s why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith.
“But I know this, that President Kennedy in his inaugural address told all of us that here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own. And that’s what we have to — I think that’s the test of public service.”
Kerry laid out an articulate and sincere message about his faith. Just as importantly, he was strong in highlighting how his religion plays a role in driving a progressive political agenda — a goal the “religious left” has been striving for, not altogether successfully, for years.
But Kerry wasn’t done.
Later in the debate, Bush said, “I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That’s what I believe. And that’s been part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty.” Kerry said he agreed, but raised him one.
“I think that [Bush] just said that freedom is a gift from the Almighty. Everything is a gift from the Almighty.”
That’s right; Kerry was effectively saying that Bush’s approach to God’s gifts wasn’t broad enough. He was trying to out-religion the most outwardly religious president in U.S. history. And he more or less pulled it off.
After all, if I were to tell you that one of the candidates would cite Scripture twice in one debate, while the other wouldn’t mention it at all, wouldn’t you be surprised to learn that it was Kerry in the role of the religious candidate?