Politics
Handicapping the Evangelical Vote
by Clay Staggs
There’s an interesting article on the web today about one man’s view on the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. The one opining is Richard Land, who is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a sometime informal adviser to President Bush. You can read the whole article here.
Now, the reason I post this is not because I find his view persuasive. Quite the contrary, I find it self-contradictory. By conventional wisdom, at this point, there are three major candidates for the Republican nomination: Rudy Guiliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Each has well identified issues that don’t exactly square with the stereotypical Republican primary voter (i.e., Evangelical Christians). Guiliani is a social liberal on many issues. McCain hasn’t reliably supported popular positions within the party (like his support of the McCain-Feingold legislation and his refusal to support the Bush tax cuts in 2001). Mitt Romney has in the past either espoused some socially liberal positions or at least failed to advance the conservative ones, and he’s a Mormon.
Mr. Land was asked to comment on how Evangelicals would view each of the three candidates and how they’d respond in the general election if each of the three were the GOP nominee. Interestingly, Mr. Land suggested that social conservatives could support McCain or Romney against Hillary (the presumptive Dem nominee), but not Rudy. He outright predicted that the “vast majority” of Evangelicals wouldn’t vote for Rudy, even against Hillary.
Assuming the article quotes him correctly, the big problem he sees for the Mayor is that he’s been married and divorced (or annulled) several times:
Land said the mayor’s annulment, divorce and subsequent third marriage will seal the deal against hizzoner for social conservatives.
That’s it. Now, consider that Mr. Land believes that Evangelicals can get over the fact that Romney’s a Mormon (!) and that McCain has betrayed conservative causes in the Senate many, many times, and support either of them against Sen. Clinton.
I think this is ridiculous. Social conservatives voted for Reagan, who had been married twice. Is that really such a big deal? A bigger deal to a conservative Christian than a Mormon president? I’m not poo-pooing, Romney, either (in fact, were I to have to cast a vote today, he’d be my choice, with Rudy a close second), but come on.
Personally, I think that as long as the GOP nominee has not assumed room temperature, if the Dem nominee is HRC, then social conservatives will turn out in DROVES to vote against her. Frankly, the issue of the times is the war with Islamo-fascism. Rudy and Romney definitely get that, and probably so does McCain. I think that, especially in the general election against a candidate perceived not to get who the bad guys are and what they’re capable of, Evangelicals would support any of the three GOP contenders. I’d like to think that Christian conservatives are savvy enough to understand that if those bad guys get their way, it won’t really matter who’s been divorced and who hasn’t.
Posted by Clay Staggs at February 16, 2007 09:08 AM
My biggest problem with all of this is the fact that the candidates have to go to these people and seek their blessing. When I think of these candidates meeting with Falwell, Robertson et al, a picture of someone kissing the Pope’s ring jumps into my head. I personally feel it is disgusting that someone must get the blessing of an individual in an attempt to get the votes of evangelicals. I would respect a Republican candidate more if they refused to meet with these people and instead brought his message to the people.
In all the history of politics, there have always been power brokers. On the worldly political side, that’s just a fact of life. As supposed Christian leaders, though, it is worrisome that Falwell et al expect to be courted by politicians. Politics shouldn’t be the concern of the church as an institution (though certainly having Christians actively involved in the political process is valuable). I just think that power corrupts, and Christian leaders ought to be wise enough to eschew such worldy pursuits. You can hardly blame the politicians though.
I understand that there have always been power brokers. I also realize that most evangelicals (those who belong to a denomination) do not share the same form of decentralized church government that we do and thus it is not atypical to look to an individual for some type of leadership. This is further accentuated by the fact that an increasing amount of evangelicals do not belong to a denomination and have entrusted one individual with making decisions. The ironic part about all this is that, in the end, this will cause the influence of evangelicals (and I use this is a general, stereotypical sense) to wane, falter and eventually erode to nothingness. As Christians have become increasingly factionalized by individual church (and no longer by denomination), so will they by individual candidate. In the end, groups (or congregations, if you will) will flock to support a single candidate. If that individual loses a primary, then it is quite possible that a large congregation will stay home on election day, causing the Party to lose that election.