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This piece originally ran at New York Daily News online:
In the 2004 election, the pattern of religious voters supporting George W. Bush and secular voters backing John Kerry was so stark that it introduced a new term to the political lexicon: the God Gap. Exit polls showed that the single best predictor of whether a voter supported Bush or Kerry wasn’t gender, income level or union membership – it was how often that person went to church.
Four years later, a much different God Gap has emerged: between religious conservatives and the secular establishment of the Republican Party. It was the marriage of those two constituencies – so-called country club Republicans and more down-market churchgoers – that fueled a remarkable 25-year Republican ascent, from Ronald Reagan to 1994′s Republican Revolution to George W. Bush.
Today, the unraveling of the alliance is raising questions about the party’s ability to win the White House again.
Nothing has pointed up the rift as dramatically as Sarah Palin. It wasn’t until John McCain unveiled his vice presidential pick that religious conservatives – excited by Palin’s staunch anti-abortion views, her personal decision to forego an abortion and give birth to a son with Down syndrome, and her background in conservative Christian churches – finally rallied to his side.
“I’m surprised and thrilled,” Family Research Council Action political chief Connie Mackey, who’d previously been critical of McCain, told me on the day of the Palin announcement. “You know how politics works – you don’t usually get it all.”
Across the country, in-the-pews religious conservatives were similarly moved. A Pew poll found that weekly white Catholic churchgoers, who’d been about evenly split between McCain and Barack Obama before the Palin pick, got squarely behind McCain after. The same poll showed that 71% of white evangelicals favored McCain after Palin joined his ticket, up from 61% before. A whopping 78% of white evangelicals had a favorable view of Palin in September, compared to 52% of the electorate at large.
And yet in the weeks since, as many of these constituencies have maintained their enthusiasm for the ticket, Palin has provoked a remarkable string of denouncements and defections from leading lights of the Republican establishment, from George Will to Peggy Noonan to David Frum to Colin Powell.
It’s not that those Republicans oppose Palin because of her conservative, faith-based views on issues like abortion, though Powell did bemoan the “rightward shift” that she represented. Rather, the party’s moderate, secular establishment is unmoved by the faith-based bond that religious conservatives feel with her. And they fear that McCain picked Palin to reap the electoral benefits of that bond, ignoring her lack of experience and other political liabilities.
It’s an attitude that strikes many religious conservatives as elitist. “There are some who’ve spoken condescendingly and forgotten about the influence of social conservatives and their role in the party,” Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Council (a conservative Christian legal group) and a zealous Palin supporter, told me. “Fiscal conservatives need to understand that social conservatives are right there with them and need to embrace them as allies.”
The Republican rift over Palin is hardly the first sign that the party’s religious and establishment wings are drifting further apart. President Bush’s 2005 nomination of evangelical White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court thrilled the Christian Right – Focus on the Family’s James Dobson devoted a handful of his radio shows to promoting her – before many of the same establishment figures now lamenting Palin torpedoed Miers’ nomination.
The rift emerged again in this year’s Republican primaries. The bulk of the party’s evangelicals supported Mike Huckabee, giving him victories in Iowa and five Southern states, while the establishment went first for Romney and Giuliani, then McCain. There was no Bush- or Reagan-like figure who united the two camps. Romney tried but failed.
Until the GOP finds another national candidate who can excite religious conservatives and mainstream Republicans, the road to the White House will be a steep uphill climb.
In the meantime, the McCain-Palin ticket has come to embody a house divided, with McCain speaking to more secular Republicans and Palin tending to the religious base. This week, while McCain campaigned in swing states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Palin was in the capital of evangelical America, Colorado Springs, talking on James Dobson’s radio program about the opposition she’s facing because of her faith-based politics.
Palin had a point. But the opposition that she, McCain, and the GOP have to worry about isn’t coming from liberals and the mainstream media, as she and Dobson suggested on air. It’s coming from their own party.
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posted October 26, 2008 at 2:31 pm
The “religious” “right” were agents of intolerance when John McCain first called them that, and they are still agents of intolerance today.
Palin’s grousing about “the opposition she’s facing because of her faith-based politics”. Only some of us oppose her because of that (a President has to be President for ALL citizens, not just the “religious” ones – and what about those who are of the ‘wrong’ religion?).
Many, many others of us oppose her because she is ill-equipped to become Commander-in-Chief, unqualified in so any areas, unethical, a bully, and inarticulate to boot. Oh, and a hypocrite: her preferred ‘abstinence only’ policy did not work for either her nor her daughter.
As for her wearing her ‘faith’ on her sleeve, any person who would charge a rape victim for her medical examination kit is NO emulator of Christ’s message. And the false witness she continues to bear against Senator Obama equally shows me she is no ‘Christian’.
It’s about time (well, long past time, really) for socially conservatives to remember, there isn’t supposed to be a religious test to hold public office in America. You have tried to make it a requirement, and that is one reason for this ‘new’ God gap. Another – not all religions are conservative. Another – not all Americans are religulous. Yet another – ALL citizens are supposed to be guaranteed equal treatment before the law, and so many socially conservative laws do not allow for that.
posted October 26, 2008 at 4:18 pm
If the GOP loose this election, blame Iowa and Huckabee. It was there that Huckabee started his anti-Mormon whisper campaign. The GOP still have a strong religious base and can win future elections as they have in the past. The problem this cycle was the anti Mormon sentiment was played up by Huckabee. GOP voters need to realize that Mormons are really their best friends when it comes to politics. So, if the GOP loses, it was Iowa that took the wind out of Mitt Romney’s sails and it was Huckabee that took the wind out of Iowa. Huckabee played on lies to convince the right wing there that he was their man. Now look where we are. I just want to say thank you to Iowa for giving the GOP a no win nomination. As for Huckabee, well the above says it all.
posted October 26, 2008 at 6:36 pm
If Obama wins the presidency you can blame Willard Romney, he literally went around paying people off to support him. When everybody knew that he was no conservative and he even said so many times. So if James & Willard think that Mormon can win the presidency without evangelicals just tell us and we will get out of the way and see what you people can do. Frankly I believe it is people like James that give Mormons a bad name, they are so bitter that Romney lost and they try to paint evangelical as bigoted as if are only choice should have been Willard. I have many Mormon friends that didn’t vote for Willard because they knew his true record, it’s time for people like James to face the facts people didn’t support slick Willy because he didn’t share our conservative values. I supported Huckabee because he did speak to thing I care about, and go figure he actually had a track record on delivering on his campaign promises.
posted October 26, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I share the sentiments of the other ex-Pentecostal. I would add to those words by mentioning the complete lack of compassion I hear from those who profess “faith-based, conservative values.”
There is no religious test for office and there IS separation of church and state. The accusatory message of condemnation that I hear so often from faith-based values voters and politicians does not reflect Christ’s message of love. Yes, political campaigns get messy and politicians “go after one another”; but, when anyone, politician or otherwise, wears religion on their sleeve and lays claim to the moral highground, they are held to a higher standard. If one wants to take up the game of politics, please lay down the cross! Souls have most likely been lost due to the self-righteous sermonizing of those who whould rather legislate morality than convert by sharing the good news of the gospel.
My recommendation to all the well-meaning Christians that have engaged in religious-political activities: Shut down the PAC’s and demonstrate the true message of Christ by engaging in local outreach.
posted October 26, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I’ve have a friend who has lived in Iowa for over 20 years, and he and I have talked about the fact that there is a STRONG anti-Mormon position being pushed by many evangelical Christians there.
For example, Rocky and Helen Hulse have an anti-Mormon missionary organization established in Nauvoo, IL. They have spoken all over Iowa in the past few years, but were in high demand as Mitt Romney’s campaign began. Take a look at their website:
http://www.nauvoochristian.org/index.php
His new book “When Salt Lake City Calls” was written in response to Romney’s candidacy. It puts forth the case that a Mormon cannot be trusted to elected office since they put allegiance to the church ahead of allegiance to the county. This message was also echoed on their blog:
mormonhomeevening.blogspot.com/
The NY Times ran an article about this back in 2007, and accurately described the atmosphere here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/politics/28repubs.html
My friend told me that it was Huckabee’s message that kept Romney from winning the state’s GOP primary.
posted October 27, 2008 at 12:17 am
I’m a Christian woman, moderate, independent
I guess my problem is that I don’t feel welcome in the GOP in the slightest. There’s a level of viciousness there that I just don’t know how to handle.
What really turned me off was the wild stuff against muslims… that’s just wrong.
To the author, great article and I really enjoyed you bringing these issues to light.
But I’d argue the problem is bigger than secular vs. non-secular… there’s a large fracturing of the Republican Party as a whole. The problem is that “my ideology” is not the same “ideology” as the next… or the next… or the next. Lately, those ideas have started to clash. I mean look at someone like Rush Limbaugh. One minute he’s saying he hates McCain, next minute he loves him. Now he’s calling for an excommunication of “fake” conservatives from the Party. That’s not tolerant in the least.
Here’s to hoping the party does transform and revitalize itself.
posted October 27, 2008 at 12:40 pm
This post does not provide any solid reason to think the gap between Wall Street Republicans and evangelical/social conservative Republicans is growing. The gap has always been there; Noonan and Will have been criticizing the religious right folks for as long as I can remember.
When the team is winning, both camps are happy and keep their differences more under wraps. When it looks like losing, both camps want to pin the blame on the other.
posted October 27, 2008 at 9:52 pm
“they try to paint evangelical as bigoted”
Many evangelicals ARE bigoted. No need to “paint” them that way. Holding a mirror up (as many do here on this and other blogs) suffices.
posted October 28, 2008 at 11:21 am
I think Social Conservatives should form a Christian Party. Then we’d have a third party, and I could finally in good conscience vote Republican again because I’d be voting purely for the agenda of personal liberty and small government touted by fiscal conservatives, not fundamentalist religion which seeks to strip that away touted by social conservatives.
posted November 2, 2008 at 12:22 am
I agree with groose.