NO DOUBT:

Prayer and the polls: Americans with strong religious beliefs have faith in Republicans (David M. Shribman, December 17, 2003, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Three years ago, when the country was divided narrowly over whether to elect Gov. George W. Bush of Texas or Vice President Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, one of the biggest gaps was over religion. In the 2000 election, Bush swept more religiously observant voters by large percentages -- and, in the case of white evangelical Protestants, by a margin of more than five to one.

This would matter in any nation at any era; much of British and French history, for example, is the story of religious struggle, and the role that religion has played in the politics of the Middle and Far East, in Africa and in Latin America is well known. Though we commonly argue that we live in a secular age, the United States today is engaged in a bitter national-security struggle with strong religious overtones -- even as the nation itself is moving toward stronger religious belief.

Today 81 percent of Americans say that prayer is an important part of their daily lives, an increase of 5 percentage points in the past 16 years, according to a national survey undertaken by the Pew Research Center. But a more important finding may be that 51 percent completely agree that prayer is an important part of their daily lives -- an increase of 10 percentage points in that period. Some 87 percent of the public says it never doubts the existence of God.

This has critical social and cultural implications. In the past decade and a half, political and religious viewpoints have become increasingly interconnected and increasingly important. Indeed, the connections between political conservatism and religiosity have grown ever more robust in recent years. A telling finding: The Democrats had an 18-percentage-point advantage among white Catholics who said in the late 1980s that they attended Mass daily; today the Republicans have a 2-point advantage over voters who say the same thing.

The flight of white evangelical Protestants and religious Catholics from the Democrats to the Republicans is one of the signal political events of our time...

That seems like a sizable voting bloc that Mr. Dean walks away from when he says he doesn't think we should discuss God in politics.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2003 6:41 PM