[Mb-civic] The religious right could well decide the coming election Economist

Mon Oct 4 09:26:51 PDT 2004

 Articles by subject: Topics: US Election 2004

UNITED STATES

 Lexington 

The passion of the Christians

Sep 30th 2004 
>From The Economist print edition

The religious right could well decide the coming election

THIS November's election is about many things. It is about the future of the
West, the war on Islamic terrorism, the beggar-thy-grandchildren deficit,
you name it. But for the professionals who run the campaigns it is about
something much bigger than any of this: refighting the last presidential
election.

The Democrats are hell-bent on exacting revenge for being cheated of victory
in 2000. For their part, the Republicans are determined to prove that they
were robbed of a clear mandate by a last-minute cock-up. Karl Rove, George
Bush's chief political strategist, thought then that his man was coasting to
victory; but the Democratic turnout was suddenly better than expected, and
the Republican one worse. Mr Rove is particularly obsessed by the idea that
4m evangelical Christians who should have pulled the lever for Mr Bush
simply stayed at home. Since then, he has done everything in his power to
boost turnout among ³people of faith² in general and evangelical Protestants
in particular.

Mr Rove's analysis makes sense. White Protestants who describe themselves as
born-again or evangelical make up about a quarter of the electorate‹a bigger
slice than blacks and Hispanics combined. They are particularly important in
swing states where economic forces pull voters towards the Democrats but
cultural ones pull them towards the Republicans. The University of
Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey calculates that
born-agains make up 36% of registered voters in Missouri, 30% in Iowa, 27%
in Ohio and 22% in Pennsylvania.

 But how likely is it that the Republicans can boost turnout among such an
unpredictable group? It is hard to tell what is going on in the born-again
world. Born-agains communicate through Good News magazine rather than the
New York Times. And the Republicans don't exactly boast about their links
with groups who claim that ³liberals² plan to ban the Bible. But there are
good reasons for thinking that born-agains will turn out in much greater
numbers than they did in 2000.

 The most obvious reason is that the turnout in 2000 looks like an
aberration. Born-agains were disillusioned with politics in the wake of the
Monica Lewinsky scandal. They were so shocked that Bill Clinton had got away
with his adultery and lying that they turned against the political world en
masse. And they were annoyed by the revelation, just a few days before the
election, that Mr Bush had been convicted of drunk driving in 1976, not just
because of the charge (though many regard drink as a demon) but because he
had tried to cover up his behaviour.

 The born-agains are in a different mood today: far more politically engaged
and far more enthusiastic about Mr Bush. Paul Weyrich, the Catholic
co-founder of the Moral Majority, thinks that the Republicans have probably
recouped two-thirds of those 4m lost votes. And he has polling evidence on
his side. Another Annenberg survey of 4,500 voters taken just before the
Democratic convention showed that 51% of born-agains identified themselves
as Republicans, compared with 22% as Democrats. The comparable figures in
2000 were 43% Republicans compared with 24% Democrats. A more recent poll by
the Barna Group, a particular favourite with the White House, makes a
distinction between evangelicals proper and the more general born-again
population. But it points to similar conclusions: 54% of born-agains plan to
vote for Mr Bush, and 90% of fully fledged evangelicals.

 Religious groups such as Concerned Women for America and James Dobson's
Focus on the Family are in a frenzy of activity these days. They have no
shortage of issues to fire them up. Mr Dobson has described the fight
against gay marriage as ³our D-Day, or Gettysburg or Stalingrad². But they
are also struck by the contrast between the two candidates. They have bonded
deeply with the president over the past four years on everything from
stem-cell research to the war on terror. By contrast, John Kerry seems about
as unappealing a candidate as you could get: a practising Catholic who
disagrees with his church on many of its most fundamental teachings, and a
Massachusetts liberal who doesn't have a clue about the born-again world
(just 6% of Massachusetts voters are born-again, compared with 34% of Texan
voters). And don't even get them started on Teresa.

 The secular backlash

Conservative white Protestants are just the tip of a much larger religious
iceberg in American politics. Mr Bush, an Episcopalian-turned-Methodist, has
tried hard to reach out to all religious groups, including Muslims. And he
has enjoyed particular success with Catholic voters. The Barna Group's poll
shows that he now has a 53% to 36% lead among Catholic likely voters, a
22-point improvement in his position in the past four months. His support
among observant Catholics is even higher.

Mr Rove's strategy of galvanising people of faith risks provoking a backlash
from people of a more secular persuasion. The Republicans have done a
passable job of flying under the radar as much as possible: talk to
evangelicals about the Republican convention, and they will wax lyrical not
about media heroes such as Arnie and Rudy but Joni Eareckson Tada, a
quadriplegic who opposes stem-cell research, and Max Lucado, a bestselling
religious writer. And initiatives against gay marriage have passed by huge
margins. But it is easy to underestimate the power of secular America. The
number of Americans who claim they have no religion has doubled over the
past decade to 29m.

Regardless of the outcome of Mr Rove's strategy, America looks ever more
divided along cultural lines. The Republicans are becoming the party of
committed Christians, the Democrats that of committed secularists. The 2004
election could well turn into a choice between Michael Moore's ³Fahrenheit
9/11² and Mel Gibson's ³The Passion of the Christ². Hardly an appetising
development for those who didn't warm to either film.