June 8, 2004
FAUX FAITH FOLLIES:
Democrats strike back on faith issue: Group launches initiative to stress religious roots of policies as polls show party faces a 'church gap.' (Gail Russell Chaddock, 6/09/04, CS Monitor)
Protestant registered voters favor President Bush by a nine-point margin over presumptive Democratic challenger John Kerry - a gap that jumps to 18 points for those who say they attend church regularly, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. While Senator Kerry has jumped to an eight-point advantage among registered Roman Catholic voters in the same poll, it's a far cry from the 56-point lead enjoyed by John Kennedy among Catholics in 1960."Bush's pro-religion messages will surely help to solidify his appeal among more conservative Protestants, while trying to peel Catholic support away from Kerry," writes Jeffrey Jones, Gallup Poll managing editor.
The "church gap" worries Democratic activists, who are united as rarely before to try to take back the White House and the Congress this November.
"There is a public perception and a press perception, fueled by the religious right, that if you're a person of faith, you're a conservative," says John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, which Wednesday launches the new project on faith and progressive policy. "That is in dire need of correction, if you want progressive social change in this country."
The effort comes as the Bush campaign steps up efforts to mobilize the GOP vote in evangelical churches, where Republicans claim a big edge.
But winning back those votes is hard. At least at the top of the Democratic Party, advocates on issues such as abortion and gay rights were recruited not from the ranks of the dispossessed, but from professional classes. They cast their appeals in the language of law and individual rights, leaving faith-based appeals to opponents on right. In response, many conservative Democrats bolted the party.
You can't support abortion, homosexuality, divorce and the Palestinians and oppose vouchers, the faith-based initiative and public prayer and still appeal to religious voters. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 8, 2004 6:41 PM
The Democrats do everything they can to alienate people and then complain those voters are leaving them because of perception or a failure to communicate. The fact is people are hearing loud and clear that the Democrats don't want their votes.
There are so many issues right now that are litmus issues that few swing voters or formerly loyal Democrats can feel welcomed.
I have been active in the Democratic party ever since I could first vote for Clinton in 1992, but generally am a centrist "New Democrat." Specifically fiscally conservative, economically center-left, and socially center-right. At times I have felt incredible hostility for my dissenting views on the left-wing orthodoxy, even though they know I actively contribute to the party. I easily understand why others have left.
This current insistence on "faith" is simply to point to existing supporters who belong to a liberal church and repeat "people of faith" like a mantra. They are not actually reaching out to those outside the party's inner core and accomodating their views to reconicle them to the party.
To do so would mean they must abandon certain parts of their platform, or at least change which issues are priorities to allow dissent on those issues while still allowing those people to be loyal Democrats without the leftist inquisition coming down on them.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at June 8, 2004 7:12 PMI have traveled around the nation more than usual in the past 6 months - in almost every area, I have heard African-American pastors on local public radio decrying gay marriage and rampant abortion (in LA, PA, VA, NJ). I do not believe the national press will ever report on this (at least not until the Democrats start really slipping in the black vote).
Even "The Economist" had a piece about the 'religion' gap this week.
Posted by: jim hamlen at June 8, 2004 9:05 PMThe fascinating thing is that it really isn't a gap. Progressives have their own religion -- politics, government, the State, however you want to phrase it -- and would probably do a lot better politically if they'd just come out and admit it. That's what you hear the more coherent commenters on the Left urging them to do anyway. Never seems to occur to the Donks that religion and Christianity aren't coterminous.
Posted by: joe shropshire at June 8, 2004 9:52 PMThis just as Hollywood releases "Saved!",a bitter "satire" of the christian youth movement.
Could they be more hapless and inept?
Posted by: at June 9, 2004 9:13 AM