The Smaller God Gap

The religious coalition that Republicans had assembled – evangelical Christians, churchgoers, and Catholics – fell apart yesterday.

The "God Gap" -- One of the most important factors in recent years has been the development of a religiosity gap in which the most church-going Americans voted Republican and the least devout voted Democratic. This gap closed a bit yesterday.

People who attended church weekly voted 58 to 41 for Bush in 2004. This year, they voted 51% for Republicans to 48% for Democrats.

It's unknown right now whether these church-going voters turned to Democrats because they now viewed them as friendlier to faith or whether they were simply drawn by Iraq.

Catholics -- With all the attention on evangelicals, we shouldn't lose sight of this: this election, Democrats won back the Catholic vote. In 2004, President Bush beat John Kerry among Catholics 52%-47%. The exit polls for the House races show Catholics going 57%-42% for the Democrats. Democrats improved among white Catholics and Hispanics.

In all likelihood this has little to do with social issues but rather illustrates Catholic dissatisfaction with the Iraq war.

Evangelical Democrats – While it wasn't exactly an evangelical stampede, Democrats did make noticeable improvements among white evangelical Christians. In 2004, John Kerry got 21% of "white evangelical/born again" Christians. This year, the Democrats got 29%.

In all likelihood, these were not conservative "religious right" voters but more moderate evangelical voters who had trended Republican in recent years but supported Democratic approaches to the environment and poverty.

Pro-Life Democrats – Several seats were snatched away from Republicans by pro-life Democrats. Robert Casey, Jr., who is anti-abortion, defeated Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania. Brad Ellsworth, who defeated Indiana incumbent John Hostettler, also opposes abortion, as does former pro-football quarterback Heath Shuler, who defeated North Carolina Republican Charles Taylor.

These Democrats are not shy about their anti-abortion views though they put a Democratic twist on them. For instance, on his website, Shuler says he is "a pro-life Democrat and I believe that all life is sacred." He adds that he also believes that "a commitment to life extends beyond the womb and means ensuring that all people have adequate health care, receive a strong education, and be given proper care in their later years."

In order to cement the gains with religious voters and Catholics, the Democrats will likely need to develop a more moderate position on abortion. These new pro-life Democrats will surely press the case; it's an open question how the pro-choice Democrats who will still dominate the party will react.

Thanks to the Iraq war, Democrats now have an opening to win over more religious voters. However, the Iraq war won’t dominate forever and Democrats will now need to prove themselves worthy of religious voters by altering their views on some social issues and dispelling the image that they're hostile to faith.

In all likelihood this has little to do with social issues but rather illustrates Catholic dissatisfaction with the Iraq war.

Any dissatisfaction with the Iraq war can be laid directly at the feet of President Bush. He hasn't been able to really articulate what our purpose there is. Unless I'm missing something, all of what he says concerning the war is forced through the lens of securing freedom and democracy in order that the forces that shape Islam can be defeated. That's all well and good, and true, as far as it goes, but I don't think he's done a good job of really explaining how and why that's so.

Rallying Americans for the war effort with this as the rallying cry doesn't have longevity. As Soldiers keep dying the securing freedom talk becomes less persuasive. We also have duty to keep an eye on things, to make sure that Soldiers have a voice with which to protest methods used or even oppose the effort, if it's going badly, since they have no real voice of their own. Victor Davis Hanson wrote a book called Carnage and Culture, and in the first few pages he described how in very early warfare, soldiers could vote on eliminating or replacing generals, if they were under par.

If it's true that Rumsfeld has resigned, it shows a marked incompetency on the part of the Administration. I don't believe that it's just coincidence, I believe they were forced to make a decision they perhaps should have made a long time ago, and which the military mugwumps have long been calling for. The republicans got their heads handed to them because incompetency is a charge that can be leveled against them pretty fairly.

I would say that any that did were not thinking as a Christian ought.

Will this further disobedience to the will of the Pope cause him to pull in the reigns and commit those that believe in abortion under anathema? Or will he continue to allow Catholics to flaunt their independence from the RCC and vote for such pro-infanticide Catholics as Kerry and Kennedy?

Can this be seen as anything but an attempt to keep as many Catholics under the auspices of the RCC as possible, even if they support something so evil as abortion?

President Bush never understood what our purpose should be. He thought you just remove the tyrants in a society and lead the people to Democracy and the example in Iraq will bring all the other dark age societies to the light. You cannot change an entire ethos by knocking the head honcho down. Germany was a Western society in the 1930s. We had to thoroughly beat and stun the populace before we could reshape thee Germans' worldview sufficiently to remold the society, which we did. We had to do the same to the Japanese population and we succeeded there. We approached a totally alien society in Iraq with an entirely different view of proper relationship and why things happen and we did not break the society down. We just changed the channel on their TV and all the people see is static.

I agree with all that you wrote. I think with the defeat and imminent hanging of Hussein we have given and will give Iraq a gift they can never repay. In my view, this is not something they would have ever been able to do for themselves. Do remember though, that a benefactor is many times hated because he is a living reminder of the period in a man's life when he was his inferior.

I believe we still have a shot at making this thing work. I believe we went there for a few reasons, least of which is captured by your tagline, but I also believe President Bush to be capable of being facile. His mission accomplished photo-op is exhibit A of what I speak of when I refer to him as facile. He also seems to have the capacity to be big picture guy, though, so perhaps a balance is possible.

Haven't kept up with the news, so don't know if Rumsfeld has actually resigned or not, but the more I think about that the more I find it odious. If he's bad enough to get rid of now, he's been bad enough to get rid of long before this, and this type of politiking when the lives of our boys are on the line is reprehensible in the extreme.

There are more than a couple of people I'd like to see exhiled: Robert MacNamara is first among equals here. President Carter follows him in succession. And this thing with Rumsfeld leaves my confidence in President Bush at the lowest it's ever been.

Oh, and one last thing. I want someone to tell me how it is possible to graduate from Yale and have the abysmal language skills that President Bush does? Why is it that I can make a better case for the war than he can? I will tell you this, I will not vote for anyone as inarticulate as him again. I know that being articulate cannot make up for ethics, etc., but it is really important.

IIRC, Truman was a bit of a word bumbler too, but the difference is he had the capacity to come up with lines like I don't give 'em hell, I just give 'em the truth, and they think it's hell, so that you had the sense that there really was something there, and not just something created by a bunch of 'handlers.' And besides, Truman didn't graduate from Yale. It's pathetic to have to admit that the guy you voted for couldn't be articulate if his life depended on it.

P.S. Any crankiness you detect in my post is not directed at you. Haven't had my coffee yet...

Our main problem with this war seems to be a constitutional problem (not Constitutional- deals with our cultural makeup) in that we cannot respond properly to an enemy until he hurts us very badly, more than symbolically badly as in 9-11. With Islam that will come and it will take a Democrat to respond. It will take the wild panic and indignation which I think only a Democrat is capable of to launch a sufficiently destructive and determined attack as will defeat this enemy soundly enough that Islam will not trouble the civilized world again for a couple of generations. I am here talking about nuclear missiles and they will be in response to probably the third or fourth nuclear or equivalently destructive WMD attack on an American city.

I think you're right, as much as it scares me to admit it. And, if you're right, isn't just a kick that what republicans began a democrat will finish for them?

I'm registered as a conservative, but I'm really inclined more to the Torie version of conservatism than the American one. That said, I've never been much of a party person. JFK said it best, 'sometimes party asks too much.' I'm a bit of a fan of JFK. I think he was the last serious democrat the country has had. He understood that taxes are burdensome, though it probably was his father who taught him that lesson. His father may have been many things, but one of them was that he was very smart, smarter than his kids actually, especially Teddy. I mean who has to cheat on a Spanish exam, and then be forced to confess? Anybody understands why someone might cheat on a science exam or a math exam, but Spanish? Please.

Joseph Kennedy also never really forgot where he came from, and that's usually a good thing.

JFK also wasn't about pitting one group of people against another, as democrats are so famous for doing. JFK comported himself poorly in the Bay of Pigs incident, to be sure. To leave those men at the mercy of Castro and his henchmen, on the pretext that he didn't want anyone to be able to link the U.S. to the invasion, is to his everlasting shame. In the minds and opinion of the world, who else could have possibly been responsible for the invasion? Still, he acquitted himself well in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and served and loved his country, I believe.

I still can't get passed the Rumsfeld resignation. What a kind of a leader is President Bush really? This whole episode had made him seem what he never seemed to me, and that's a weasle. A man who really doesn't place the lives of our boys in Iraq first and foremost on his list. How could he do this?

His father and all great military men alive must have just wanted to wretch when he posed for his Mission Accomplished thingy.

It seems to me that the democrats that were elected are really no less right of center than many republicans, and if I'm right then this could be a welcome realignment. Our republic needs a loyal opposition, and we really haven't had one that is in a place of power for a long time now.

May God watch over all our leaders, and most especially our boys and men in Iraq. May they get the leaders they truly deserve.

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