As long-time readers may recall, I wrote a piece for the Washington Monthly last year about the fact that, for the first time in American history, three admitted adulterers (McCain, Giuliani, and Gingrich) were likely to run for president. That our two-timing trifecta belong to the Republican Party, the party that presents itself as the arbiter of virtue, made the story all the more entertaining.
What I didn’t have, at the time, was any kind of polling data suggesting to what extent this might matter during the campaign. I spoke with many conservative evangelical leaders and found, to my surprise, that they were quite reluctant to support a candidate who had infidelity in their background. A spokesperson for Dobson’s Focus on the Family told me, “If you have a politician, an elected official, and they can’t be trusted in their own marriage, how can I trust them with the budget? How can I trust them with national security?” She added that a candidate who “had an affair and then moved on and restored that marriage” might find forgiveness with Christian conservatives, but someone “who had an affair and then left his wife” would not. Unfortunately for McCain, Giuliani, and Gingrich, this doesn’t apply to any of them.
But were the conversations I had with Christian conservatives representative of evangelicals in general? Could this be a looming iceberg for leading GOP candidates? I argued that this will matter, but there was no empirical data one way or the other.
Until now. A Newsweek poll released over the weekend produced some numbers that will no doubt discourage the Republican front-runners. They’re best hope is to prevent anyone from finding out about their past, which is far easier said than done.
* A majority (56%) of Americans said a candidate’s relationship with their spouse tells the public something about how good a president they would be. When looking just at evangelical Republicans, the number grows to 70%.
* Divorce wasn’t seen as too big a hurdle — Reagan broke that wall down in 1980 — but adultery was a deal-breaker for a lot of voters. Among all voters, 43% said they would vote against a candidate who had committed adultery. Among evangelical Republicans, that number increases to 54%.
* And in news that should make Romney happy, 60% of evangelical Republicans said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who “seems to have a strong marriage and has never been divorced.”
The trick of all this, at least at this point, is whether this will become a major campaign issue or not, particularly in the primaries. Will faithful GOP candidates with no sexual skeletons take on the leading candidates on this issue? And if so, who’ll be the first to raise the issue?
Time will tell, but if a majority of evangelical Republicans has ruled out support for an adulterous candidate, that’s a) a significant hurdle for the two-timing trifecta; and b) a tempting target for second-tier candidates anxious to get ahead.
Stay tuned.