Could Obama win 40% of evangelicals? Would it kill the religious right?

June 6, 2008

BeliefNet described Mark DeMoss as arguably “the most prominent public relations executive in the evangelical world.” That’s an entirely fair description. We are, after all, talking about someone whose client list includes Focus on the Family, Franklin Graham, and Campus Crusade for Christ, in addition to having served as Jerry Falwell’s chief of staff.

And right now, DeMoss, who was responsible for evangelical outreach for Mitt Romney’s campaign, has a message about the presidential race that I don’t think Republicans are going to like.

“If one third of white evangelicals voted for Bill Clinton the second time, at the height of Monica Lewinsky mess — that’s a statistic I didn’t believe at first but I double and triple checked it — I would not be surprised if that many or more voted for Barack Obama in this election. You’re seeing some movement among evangelicals as the term [evangelical] has become more pejorative. There’s a reaction among some evangelicals to swing out to the left in an effort to prove that evangelicals are really not that right wing. There’s some concern that maybe Republicans haven’t done that well. And there’s this fascination with Barack Obama. So I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 40-percent.”

(The Lewinsky scandal, of course, came after the ’96 election, but as far as I know, DeMoss is right about Clinton’s evangelical vote totals.)

And what about the Republican nominee? BeliefNet asked, “How is John McCain doing among evangelicals, a crucial Republican constituency?” DeMoss said from his perspective, no one in the evangelical community is really talking about McCain at all.

DeMoss is obviously just one person, and it’s possible that if we asked a half-dozen other prominent leaders in the evangelical community, we’d get a different perspective.

But from where I sit, Obama shouldn’t have too much trouble getting 40% of the evangelical vote. He might even get more.

Consider how the landscape has changed over the last four years. Howard Dean is breaking bread with Richard Land. Barack Obama is hanging out with Rick Warren. The entire religious-right establishment decides early on that John McCain is completely unacceptable as the Republican presidential nominee, and yet, McCain wins the party’s nod fairly easily.

Can Obama get 40% of the evangelical vote? Of course he can.

What’s McCain bringing to the table? The relationship between the Republican and the theocratic wing of his party has always been a little sketchy (“agents of intolerance” more or less sealed the deal), and his efforts to rebuild the bridges have been awkward, at best. The only heavy-hitter McCain successfully won over was Falwell, who died before he could help McCain in any meaningful way.

Instead, we have McCain embracing John Hagee, only to denounce him. Embracing Rod Parsley, only to denounce him, too. McCain won’t even talk to James Dobson, and the religious right’s legislative wish-list isn’t even on McCain’s radar screen.

We’re talking about a guy who can’t even talk about how, when, and whether he switched from being an Episcopalian to a Baptist without sounding completely incoherent.

At this point, the religious right’s power is pretty shaky. Younger evangelicals don’t want anything to do with the Dobson crowd, and more and more evangelicals are publicly anxious to expand the definition of “religious issues” to include matters like poverty, global warming, and Darfur. The old model — “Vote GOP, because Jesus wants you to” — is both ridiculous and unpersuasive in a contemporary context.

And if Obama is able to do successful outreach to this community, and get 40% of the evangelical vote in November, the religious right, as a coordinated political movement, will look pretty irrelevant.

I have an aunt and uncle who are born-again Christians with 4 kids all old enough to vote. They live in Texas and have all told me (in a conversation where I almost choked I was so flabbergasted) that they would absolutely be voting for Obama.

They said they have many friends who feel the same way.

Homer

  • If Obama gets 40%, will that be enough to shut up the Amy Sullivan bashers?

  • I’m not religious at all in the conventional sense, but it will be a great relief to see Christians taking their label back from Dobson et al, and from the Republican Party.

  • Gee, what was it, twenty minutes ago that Obama couldn’t attract white working class Democrats?

  • The Flying Spaghetti Monster works His noodly apendages in mysterious ways 😉

  • Deep in their hearts any knowledgeable Christian knows that Jesus would NOT want them to vote for the Republican’ts, the party of the Rich and Powerful.

    Just talk about the Christian values of helping the poor, the sick and the widowed, then contrast that to how the Bushites have handled America’s Iraqi War Veterans and their families and you’ll win.

  • So, will the GOP’s only hope be to try an win ugly via appealing to racism?

    Somehow I doubt the Republican Party will be so insane as to forever tarnish it’s brand by doing so, but might McCain and his campaign give in to it, even a little, out of desperation? We know the GOP has been looking at ways to appeal to both sexism and racism early on, so it can’t be ruled out, especially in big swing states like Ohio and Florida.

  • My inclination is to doubt this. Evangelicals may not be crazy about McCain but, just like Clinton supporters with Obama, they’d be crazy to vote for the other party’s candidate who shares even less of their ideology. On issues like abortion, separation of church and state, gay rights, Obama is diametrically opposed to everything evangelicals believe in. True, global warming and poverty have relatively recently been making their way into the evangelical agenda, but McCain, at least as a rhetorical matter, has taken a somewhat more progressive approach to climate change than Bush did, and I’m just not sure that poverty or Darfur (about which, let’s face it, Obama isn’t likely to do much either) are going to be enough to pull substantial evangelical votes from the Republican Party. The best Obama can hope for, I think, is large numbers of evangelicals staying home this year, not pulling them en masse away from McCain.

    That said, if there’s one thing the last five months have proven, it’s never to underestimate Barack Obama.

  • What Okie said. I bet the leaders of the TalEvan are in a panic, wondering what to do about all of the nasty Christians in their corporation. If they kick them out, they’ll have to find a new flock to fleece. If they allow them to stay the TalEvangical ministers might be thrown out in favor of someone who does more than wave a Bible.

    Watch for smear campaigns against Jesus, the DFH of Nazareth.

    You think I jest? I do not.

  • So, will the GOP’s only hope be to try an win ugly via appealing to racism?

    Though that may sound a bit on the “Engrish” side of things, you can just imagine the GOP’s Dick Dastardly Squadron avidly studying the chaos and disorder current in Zimbabwe for cheap and cheerful ways as could be applied in the “morally superior” United States.

    And “officially” blame the “radical left” when they may unwittingly be “dropping hints” as could be their own undoing.

  • Could Obama win 40% of evangelicals?

    He could do that, but I would have preferred that it stayed under the radar so that the bible thumpers won’t get ideas about being a constituency again.

    I think Obama has the potential to be a great president for all Americans for 8 years. But then 8 years after that he’ll make a fool of himself campaigning for Michelle and we’ll forget how good he was.

    McCain is a president for all Americans…employers.

  • JRD–Obama has been a, if not the, leader in the Senate for ending the genocide in Darfur. Don’t be sure that he is likely to stop at paying lip service, it’s important to him.

  • Such wondrous news! Prayers and hosannas are in order!!

    A schism seems likely. Evangelical Christians are a broad spectrum. There are crazed fundamentalists who will shout ‘Muslim liberal’. The more reasonable Christians will want to get as far away from this crowd as possible.

    More than splitting evangelical Christians I believe it will open a discussion about what it means to call yourself a Christian. I’ve met many evangelical Christian leaders over the past 4 years who were obviously ready to embrace Democrats. Now they seem as though they were like a wheel moving rapidly. It can look like the spokes are moving backwards when the wheel is moving forward with great speed.

  • Sir Sinsalot is not going to get any evangelical votes sitting in limousines getting blow jobs from other men. Once again his wide-eyed followers are in denial about the problems he has with whites, women, Hispanics, Jews, evangelicals, blue-collar workers, gays and lesbians, straights, people over 40, people under 40, married people, single people, men, college graduates, legal citizens and bipeds.

    If the rules and bylaws committee hadn’t burned the DNC charter and handed Senator Cheaterman the delegates from the scores of states and territories which would have been won by Senator Clinton if voters had, as I suggested, been limited to white women who can spot the more qualified candidate and are immune to jungle fever, Obama would have had only a few delegates, maybe 5. You will all be very surprised on election day when McCain gets 49 states and Obama gets Illinois — maybe he gets Illinois. I will be busy laughing, thinking “I told you so” and raising a glass of Schweppes Bitter Lemon as I call my daughters to tell them the whole equal opportunity thing is on hold for the moment.

  • If Obama gets 40%, will that be enough to shut up the Amy Sullivan bashers?

    I hope so. I’ve never understood the hostility she gets. It’s just insane.

    Younger evangelicals are much more interested in world affairs and environmentalism, and someone like Obama will be a huge draw for them. His connections with Rick Warren are hugely important in that regard.

  • Re: 8:

    “So, will the GOP’s only hope be to try an win ugly via appealing to racism?”

    It shock but not surprise me.

    The thing I think watching out for is someone like Bin Laden making some inflammatory speech, or getting captured or killed, just before the vote.

    (Kind of like he conveniently made that speech just before the 2004 election, as Bush and Kerry were running neck and neck)

    I’ve said it before – the trick on the end of the GOP is to make things as close as possible, so certain states’s elections can be fixed (FL in 2000, OH in 2004). Anything to cause enough doubt and confusion in the undecided, and enough controversy to tune out the uninterested is what’s been working for them since 2000.

    I should add, that all of this will be hard to do, or impossible to fix, should Obama and the Dems be ahead of McCain and the GOP in the double-digits across much of the country.

  • JRD @ 9, you have a point, but where I think (hope) Obama has a shot in gaining a strong percentage of Evangelicals is the fact that, amongst the people who actually read and pay attention to the news, it’s pretty apparent that Obama is religious, and perhaps more importantly, TOLERANT of faith-based opinions that differ from his own.

    Remember the story about how, in one of Bush’s bullshit scripted town hall meetings, one Evangelical stood up and thanked Bush, because he finalyl feels like God is back in the White House?

    Remember how Bush talked about how he talks…DIRECTLY…with God every day (as opposed to “praying” to God in the hopes of guidance, like normal folk), and how God told Bush he was making all the right calls?

    None of that is really working out for the Evangelicals right about now. In fact, it seems that the more the president bases his opinions directly off of faith (or, claims to, anyway) the worse those decisions are for the nation. Bush gives God a bad name.

    Granted, McCain’s relationship with the Jesus jet-setters is not as cozy as Bush’s, but he still sufferes from a: being the de facto leader of the political group that ALWAYS courts the wackier wing of the faith-based community, b: not cozying up to that community in the past, c: cozying up to them now when it’s politically expedient to do so, and d: rejecting their leaders, again, when it’s politically expedient to do so.

    As a result, it’s hard for a God-fearing man to get a bead on what McCain really thinks about religion. Now, with all the smears Obama’s had to endure, it’s like I said before – for people who are truly paying attnetion (which is apparently 40% of the Evangelical base, give or take, for the moment) Obama cares about his religion deeply. Even more so than the poeple who used to preach it to him (ala Wright). People might not like the way he professes his faith, but they like that he has a faith that he professes. It’s something they’re not really used to amongst us cuh-RAY-zee Godless libruls. It’s comforting. It’ll go a long way (again, I hope).

    Because even if a lot of Evangelicals don’t like Obama, think he’s secretly a Muslim or an afro-Marxist or whatever he’s supposed to be today, they don’t have faith in McCain. They don’t believe he’ll do a good job. Those who put Pro-Life sentiment above all else will probably vote for him, but with the war and economy, even the most feverish pro-lifers take pause to think about getting the country on the right track every other way. Sad to say, the lives of unborn children might take a back seat to these folks when it comes to not being able to afford to keep their gas tank full, or wondering if their neighors son (or their own) will come back from iraq in one piece, or how he’ll be cared for if he doesn’t. I think a lot of Evangelicals who would normally never consider voting for a Democratic nominee just might rethink what Democrats have been saying all along: we’ll respect your right to profess your faith, we just don’t think we shold govern by it, because not everyone professes that same faith, and we have to respect them, too. And they might start to think it’s a dandy idea.

    Once again, I hope.

  • Does McCain even go to church? I’m just curious; I won’t say if it’s good or bad, but does he?

  • JRD – A few prominent evangelical Christian leaders have taken progressive stances on abortion, gay rights, and other hot button issues. They’ve pointed out that no one thinks that abortion is peachy keen or that gay people will benefit from being called sinners. What they are moving towards is addressing the things that are the root cause of abortion – lack of opportunity, lack of support networks, dominance and abuse by men, need for women to be empowered, etc.

    Several evangelical leaders have reached out to the gay community to determine how they can work together to address AIDS. It’s changed their views on Bush’s abstinence program in Africa.

    I had an e-mail exchange with a couple of leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals and one leader of the international association. (Don’t ask me how it boggles my mind.) They were all opposed to the war in Iraq. Surprised me!

    This change has been in motion for many years. Bush has accelerated it. (And I don’t mean to praise Bush. A positive progressive example is sorely needed to propel the process along. Good luck Obama!)

  • I think the evangelicals are so divided right now that they will not be a factor. McCain doesn’t excite them, and they’re coming down from their love affair with the worst president ever (who they thought was the peachiest until he screwed the pooch six ways to Sunday). Some of them will buy the Obama=Muslim BS, but only the very stupidest ones, so I look forward to ignoring them completely.

  • I have a feeling he won’t do that well with Evangelicals, but it will be interesting to see how young Evangelicals vote. I think he’ll make some headway with the younger ones.

  • My inclination is to doubt this. -JRD

    Me too, though it’s just in my nature to doubt everything. I think in this case, tradition will be hard to overcome, plus we’re not considering potential veeps. They may not make a difference with some voters, but if McCain picks a solid evangelical, that, along with tradition, may be enough to keep them in their court.

  • Slappy says at 19 – I think a lot of Evangelicals who would normally never consider voting for a Democratic nominee just might rethink what Democrats have been saying all along: we’ll respect your right to profess your faith, we just don’t think we shold govern by it, because not everyone professes that same faith, and we have to respect them, too. And they might start to think it’s a dandy idea.

    I am so jealous of someone who can so so much so succinctly.

  • I tend to agree with JRD and doubtful. I think it’s much more likely that many evangelicals will stay home than that they’ll vote for Obama, and if McCain picks an evangelical VP, many will come out for him.

    D Pecan raises some interesting points about shifts in the evangelical ranks, though. I’d add that the Christian environmental movement, with its emphasis on humans as stewards of God’s earth, is picking up steam and people with strong feelings in this direction are more likely to be impressed by Obama than by McCain, McCain’s talk about his environmental record nothwithstanding.

  • i appreciate that doubtful is doubtful.

    its friday. somebody buy the first round before i devolve into posting utter nonsense.

    (maybe this is why Friday afternoon used to be dedicated to cats.)

  • We’re talking about a guy who can’t even talk about how, when, and whether he switched from being an Episcopalian to a Baptist without sounding completely incoherent.

    To be fair to McCain, he can’t talk about anything else without sounding completely incoherent, too

  • The so-called evangelical community, already small, is shrinking…fast. Seriously, the numbers have been dropping steadily for a generation as, despite the corporate media’s portrayal to the contrary, our country grows more secular.

    They don’t want you to know this, by the way.

  • Everyone here is making the same common mistake: evangelical = conservative/republican.

    There are liberal evangelical Christians. Jimmy Carter is one such. Don’t tar them all with the same brush.

  • Everyone here is making the same common mistake: evangelical = conservative/republican.

    I don’t think anyone’s making that mistake. But white evangelicals voted 68 percent Republican and 30 percent Democratic in 2000 and 78-21 in 2004, so there are established patterns to be acknowledged. We’re all hoping those numbers start to become less lopsided.

  • I had this conversation with my sister-in-law who goes to church, and she says, “I’m not a Christian”, which made me laugh. I mean, most everybody in America is a Christian, but the evangelicals and GOP have managed to make “Christian” a dirty word. She talked about how if she tells people she goes to church – a rather progressive church, as most any church outside of strip centers are – they get scared. Because of Republicans, we now equate “Christian” with hating gays and shooting abortion doctors. For a while, thight might have made some fence-sitters go Republican to prove they’re good Christians, but now, it makes the fence-sitters claim they aren’t Christian at all.

    “Christian” today is what “liberal” used to be. Most people were liberal, but didn’t want to admit it because they didn’t want people to view them as the caricature.

  • On June 6th, 2008 at 5:26 pm, Maria said:
    Everyone here is making the same common mistake: evangelical = conservative/republican.

    I don’t think anyone’s making that mistake. But white evangelicals voted 68 percent Republican and 30 percent Democratic in 2000 and 78-21 in 2004, so there are established patterns to be acknowledged. We’re all hoping those numbers start to become less lopsided.
    ________________________________________

    I’d remove it a step and add: While many Evangelicals might not be gung-ho neocons, many of them are so strongly against abortion, they have trouble voting for a pro-choice candidate, even if they agree with the rest of that particular candidate’s agenda. There are other “single issues” that affect “single issue candidates” but for some, abortion is a big’un. And being a Democrat doesn’t necessarily equal being pro-choice, which is why there are a few pro-life Democrats in office.

    However, and as I said above, some people, with the state of the union being what it is, might rethink whether their religious beliefs might conflict with what’s best for them here and now. I don’t know if “there are no athiests in foxholes;” sometimes, when you’ve tried to maintain your religious beliefs and the people who share your religious beliefs continue to f*** you over, you start to wonder if perhaps there isn’t a better way.

  • All these conservatives do is talk about pro-life but know they will never be expected to do anything about it because the majority of the country support a woman’s right to an abortion. So they blow a lot of air knowing they will never actually be made to back it up.

    They are against sex ed which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies.

    They are against birth control which also would help prevent unwanted pregnancies.

    Then they bitch up a storm about abortion citing God and religion but doing nothing to change the situation.

    The new wave of evangelicals understand there are different ways to reduce abortions and see that republicans just use it as a means to get elected but stubbornly refuse to try new ways of dealing with the issue. They are tired of being used by a religious right that is too biased to deal with the reality in realistic terms. They are tired of being manipulated to get votes. That community obviously has a long way to go because many have such narrow mindedness they can see only one remedy…and so far it hasn’t worked.

  • “white women… who are immune to jungle fever…

    I just sprayed expensive beer all over my monitor, Thanks for the guffaw!

  • Hagee has further discredited the dispensational branch of the Religious Right. Beyond the publicized quotes, attention is now being paid to his conspiracy theory rants from the pulpit. His Illuminati/Masonic/Federal Reserve/Rothschild/Satanic conspiracies and gay, Jewish antichrist quotes are an insult to both Christians and Jews. See the article at Talk2action.org, titled No Debate on Hagee?

  • On Franklin Graham’s one-on-one questioning of Obama –

    The question presented was whether Jesus Christ is THE way or merely A way to salvation. Mr. Obama reportedly said “Jesus is the only way for me. I’m not in a position to judge other people.” The clear implication of Mr. Obama’s answer is that Jesus may not be, or is not necessarily, the only way for the entire human race.

    That which Mr. Obama’s answer implies is fully confirmed as reported by CATHLEEN FALSANI , Sun-Times Columnist (April 5, 2004) who in an hour long interview with Mr. Obama reports that Mr. Obama stated the following:

    “I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

    [http://www.suntimes.com/news/falsani/726619,obamafalsani040504.article]

    OK there you go – Jesus Christ is not the only way. That’s what the man believes. But ostensibly Mr. Obama believes the Bible is truth. If so, the Bible says at John 14:6 that Jesus Christ said:

    “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come unto the Father but through me.”
    John 14:6

    Likewise, Acts 4:12 says:

    “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12

    So, Mr. Obama says there are “many paths to the same place”. Mr. Obama makes Jesus Christ a liar because Jesus Christ said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come unto the Father but through me.”

    Mr. Obama refuses to acknowledge as true Jesus Christ’s claim that He is the only way to God and salvation for ~ not just Mr. Obama ~ but the entire human race. Pluralism repudiates truth as an absolute for all and embraces the notion that what is true for you need not be truth for someone else. Tolerance used to mean (and by my book still does) that one “puts up with” folks that don’t have it right. . . but now means (to many) that I must accept opposing views as equally valid as mine.

    The keystone to Christianity and to the Christian faith is that Jesus Christ is the only way to God & Salvation for the ENTIRE human race. Everybody else is wrong and in need of Jesus Christ. Mr. Obama does not hold to this and is therefore not a Christian, as his belief falls outside the pale of Biblical orthodoxy i.e., his belief is heretical.

    Given the fact that mutuality exclusive tenets of world religions cannot both be true and given the fact that the Bible states Jesus Christ is the Only Savior of the world it seems all Protestants, Baptists and Catholics must, unless the be rank hypocrites, repudiate Mr. Obama’s pluralistic view about how people are saved and how they get to God.

    I will admit that, to be consistent, President Bush is off base also and shares the same company as Mr. Obama. ABC’s Charles Gibson interviewed President George W. Bush. Mr. Gibson asked the below questions and President Bush responded as indicated:

    Q. “Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim?”
    A. “I think we do. We have different routes of getting to the Almighty.”
    Q. “Do Christians and non-Christians and Muslims go to heaven in your mind?”
    A. “Yes they do. We have different routes of getting there.”

    I will note that President Bush did concede in the same interview that some believe in a false god: Q. Does bin Laden? Does Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pray to the same God that you and I do? A. I think they pray to a false god otherwise they wouldn’t be killing innocent lives like they have been.

    But President Bush’s confusion does not redeem Mr. Obama from the false statement that he is a Christian. In any event, if indeed President Bush and Mr. Obama both refuse to admit there is only one way for salvation for the entire human race than they are Universalists and don’t believe in the Biblical keystone of the Christian faith: that Jesus Christ is the only way to God & Salvation for the ENTIRE human race.

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