THE NATION'S PULSE:Which Way for Evangelicals?
Antle, W. James III
T H E N A T I O N ’ S P U L S E Which Way for Evangelicals? by W. James Antle III VEN SOPHISTICATED POLITICAL ANALYSTS tend to dismiss religious conservatives as if they were some kind of...
...In an unsuccessful Senate race against Ted Kennedy, he even seemed ambivalent about one of his signature issues—opposition to same-sex marriage...
...Romney’s past liberal pronouncements were publicized by religious right activists from Massachusetts...
...Congressional Republicans waited a year and a half, until the next election cycle beckoned, to have a vote on the federal marriage amendment...
...Barack Obama spoke about AIDS at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, a move described in Salon as “Saddleback’s Left Turn...
...Nor is his support for gay rights theoretical—he moved in with a gay couple after the breakup of his second marriage...
...Already, Democrats have reached out with a few token gestures...
...When the Coalition’s board balked, Hunter resigned promptly...
...After all, some of their most prominent leaders, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, are senior citizens given to eccentric pronouncements...
...Mitt Romney has been struggling to provide disenchanted cultural conservatives another alternative...
...But most importantly, conservative Christians are a major source of Republican votes...
...In November 2006, Dr...
...Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sen...
...They provide a steady stream of volunteers to stuff envelopes, knock on doors, and hammer in signs...
...We’re not looking for government to be the sole answer,” he said...
...Several of their once-formidable political organizations, like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, are either defunct or have seen their influence wane...
...After the values-voter triumph of 2004, cultural conservatives have relatively little to show for their lopsided support of the GOP...
...Other conservatives far from New England have gotten on board...
...Factor in traditionalist Catholics and other conservative religious communities and the voters bundled together in the religious right category are clearly the largest single constituency in the GOP’s big tent...
...He voted for an expansion of taxpayer-funded embryonic stem-cell research and against the federal marriage amendment...
...Everyone else is far behind...
...by W. James Antle III VEN SOPHISTICATED POLITICAL ANALYSTS tend to dismiss religious conservatives as if they were some kind of joke...
...Outgoing Massachusetts Gov...
...Many of the candidates with most impeccable social-conservative credentials are languishing in the single digits...
...Bush’s pro-choice past in 1988 and Mitt Romney’s today may be a sign they will be particularly exacting...
...In early 2005, a network of leading socially conservative organizations called the Arlington Group released a letter expressing disappointment with the Bush administration’s decision to prioritize Social Security reform above gay marriage, despite the latter’s political dividends in the previous election...
...If I [leave the party],” he said in 1998, “I will do everything I can to take as many people with me as possible...
...T H E N A T I O N ’ S P U L S E Which Way for Evangelicals...
...So-called values voters may make up a bigger part of the Republican Party’s electoral coalition than ever before...
...It will be difficult for Republicans to turn out their evangelical base with a candidate whose commitment to social conservatism is suspect...
...One participant, James Dobson, hasn’t been shy about threatening Republicans in the past...
...It is still early, but so far the polls have been consistent...
...Activists question McCain’s commitment even on the issues where they consider his votes sound—Barry Goldwater’s Senate successor isn’t much of a culture warrior...
...Our voters are Christians first, conservatives second, and Republicans third...
...GOP presidential hopeful and religious right favorite Sam Brownback appeared with Obama at Saddleback, showing that social conservatives can adapt—and that the traditional issues still matter...
...Before pulling out of the 2000 New York Senate race, he refused to endorse a ban on partial-birth abortions in order to secure the Conservative Party’s ballot line...
...Romney hasn’t always been a social conservative...
...Harry Reid invited Jim Wallis, a politically liberal evangelical, to give the response to President Bush’s weekly radio address...
...Romney’s courtship of evangelicals has been challenging, but not for the reasons many in Washington assume...
...But that doesn’t mean evangelicals are always single-issue voters—or unsophisticated ones...
...John McCain of Arizona are the two front-runners for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination...
...People are going to come to a rally to save babies before anything else,” said Echard...
...Keeping these voters motivated will be an even bigger challenge in a political climate where many social conservatives feel neglected by the Republican Party...
...Giuliani is staunchly pro-choice...
...There may be some convergence between the left and the right” among religious voters, Hunter said...
...Yet it would be a mistake to write off the religious right...
...In 2004, the Pew Research Center found that 78 percent of white evangelicals backed President Bush’s re-election...
...HASTENED BY THIS EXPERIENCE, how severe will evangelicals be in their demands for GOP ideological conformity...
...He has built a fundraising network that rivals the front-runners’, put together an impressive campaign team, and won plaudits from conservative commentators...
...Republican candidates for Congress fared almost as well with 74 percent of the white evangelical vote...
...On values, he’s no different from Hillary Clinton or Al Gore...
...That represents a third of the total ballots cast for him in a high-turnout election...
...But party strategists shouldn’t be too quick to count on born-again Democrats...
...They are now thoroughly integrated into the party infrastructure, holding positions on state committees and congressional staffs...
...Hillary Clinton has retained the services of Burns Strider, a leading Democratic strategist for winning over evangelicals...
...America’s Mayor is to his party’s left on immigration and gun control...
...Evangelicals may comprise nearly 40 percent of the Republican electorate in key 2008 primaries...
...President Bush vetoed a liberalized embryonic stem-cell research bill—but only after a GOP Congress voted to send it to him...
...While some evangelicals try to push the GOP farther right, others are moving in the opposite direction...
...A key test will be how well Romney does among evangelical voters...
...I definitely think the core social issues remain the biggest motivators,” said Jessica Echard, executive director of Eagle Forum...
...It failed in both houses...
...While the Beltway conventional wisdom is that conservative Christians won’t back a Mormon, Rom46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 W . J A M E S A N T L E I I I ney’s bigger problem may be the fact that he had to campaign and govern in Massachusetts...
...Even after exit polls showed a modest drop in evangelical support for Republican congressional candidates, less than a third of these theologically conservative Protestants pulled the lever for Democrats...
...The contrast between the acceptance of George H.W...
...Does that mean that evangelicals might even turn to the Democrats...
...And there are millions of reasons for an ambitious Republican to fit the bill...
...Giuliani favors legal recognition for gay domestic partnerships...
...But his record isn’t perfect...
...But it could be part of the answer...
...Evangelicals stress conversion to the faith, but not all of them are willing to accept political converts...
...W. James Antle IIIis associate editor of The American Spectator...
...McCain’s positions on social issues are more orthodox: he opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother’s life is in danger...
...And among some activists, discontent with the Republican leadership has been percolating for some time...
...F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 47...
...Yet the inventory of items on Hunter’s new evangelical agenda doesn’t fit comfortably with some aspects of the Republican platform...
...Giuliani’s a liberal...
...His McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform was bitterly opposed by many religiousconservative groups...
...Mature movements need something to be for...
...He wanted to broaden the group’s focus to tackle “compassion issues” like poverty and the environment...
...he is against same-sex marriage...
...As Republicans have discovered in their elusive quest for the black vote, it takes more than a few prominent endorsements and hopeful poll results to swing a voting bloc...
...I think we are going to be looking for a full-range candidate,” David French, a pro-Romney evangelical, told me this summer...
...Last November, the dreaded Christian right was the largest voting bloc to stick by the GOP...
...John McCain and Rudy Giuliani don’t get my juices flowing,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association...
...Every movement starts out with a list of things that it’s against,” Hunter explained...
...As recently as 2002, he campaigned as a pro-choice supporter of gay rights...
...But so far, this doesn’t seem to have translated into McCain or Giuliani-level grassroots support...
...And Sen...
...Joel C. Hunter, pastor of the Northlands Church in Longwood, Florida, was poised to become the new president of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition...
...Michigan pro-family advocate Gary Glenn told the New Republic his constituents “are not going to knowingly support an individual who spent his entire political career supporting abortion on demand and endorsing almost every aspect of the homosexual political agenda...
...There is only one problem: the Republican Party isn’t giving them anyone to vote for...
Vol. 40 • February 2007 • No. 1
